Brightwork Fees

[GotTheNotion]

I've been doing a lot of refinishing to lately: companionways, rub rails, boom traveler, etc. I have a lot of wood working experience with guitars and furniture as well as boats. The stuff I've done looks great!! (although my expertise is sewing) Just curious to know how much people pay for having someone come out and do this sort of thing.

[Sailormann]

It depends on how much disposable income they have - if you are thnking of doing it - look for a marina with a lot of rich people...

[GotTheNotion]

I would like to know how much people charge for brightwork.

sailormann: have you ever hired someone to do it? how much did you pay. If you did it for someone else, how much would you charge?

[hellosailor]

Notion, good skilled labor is always a "what the market can bear" situation. If you do ten feet of rail in an hour, and someone else does twenty, how can you convince the buyer that your rates are the same? You can't, you have to sell them on your overall skill and performance, and they'll pay what it is worth to them. You might find a range anywhere from $10-50 an hour, ten bucks being what you can often find cash labor at pickup stops for (with varying skills) but that's the kind of variation. Nice big yacht might go higher--or might refuse to pay the bill.

I think you need to decide how much you want per hour, then decide if that's marketable in your area, or if the local prices are higher and you can/want to match the local market. (Undercutting the market is a losing game for everyone in the long run.)

[GotTheNotion]

DIY girl, just curious...

[chris_gee]

How can you price a labour of love?

[Alden68]

I'd be willing to pay someone $20/hour to yank all the wood off my boat and burn it. Then I might actualy have time to put the boat in the water this year.......

In the boston area skilled painters are getting between $20 and $30 an hour. While this is what the charges will be....you never know who is going to show up at the job as the help might be $8/hour cash help picked up on the side of the road.

[ollie820]

I purchased a 42'er with 2.5 inch toe rails. The dealer wanted 8K to do it with Bristol Finish. I laughed. it is now a nice silvery grey.

[Quickstep192]

I have a Quickstep 24 like the one in the attached picture. It has teak coamings, drop boards, hatch slides, handrails, toe rail, outboard bracket and a teak gunwhale guard that I added. Two years ago, I paid about $1,000 to have the whole thing done in cetol. Unfortunately, the yard that did that work gave up doing brightwork. This year, I shopped to find a person to do it and got and estimate of $3500; that person also indicated that they'd really rather not do a "small" boat because they didn't make money. I was happy to oblige, the job wasn't worth $3500 to me. If you're good at this and want to make a business of it, you might have to start out working cheap and raise your prices as word of mouth makes people aware of your abilities.

PS. If you're near Annapolis, let's talk......

[Pamlicotraveler]

Originally Posted by GotTheNotion

Just curious to know how much people pay for having someone come out and do this sort of thing.

There is definately a market for this type of thing. Especially in area where there are alot of boats, of course.

We have a fair amount of teak and trim, and we decided to strip the cetol off of the toerails and use varnish. I couldn't imagine getting on my bad knees for days on end to strip the cetol, sand, and varnish. We got someone to do it and for stripping the cetol and revarnishing with 8 coats and doing all of the varnish it was $3,500.

That was a lot, but the woman doing it was experienced and spent a large part of her winter doing it. I think it is a hard job - a piece at a time might be fun, but 8 coats of re-sanding and varnish on a boat with lots of wood would get old quickly for me. Her estimate was based on $30 an hour, which sounds high, but I suspect she spent every bit of that amount of time and probably more. It involved a lot of hand sanding - not an electric sander which can create uneven spots.

Lawyers charge $200-$300 an hour or more. I think the good woodworker is underpriced.

Our boat looks great to me though. Hopefully I can behave and not have to pay lawyers for anything and can spend my money on the boat's woodwork