Sticking out a shaker door
@resto: in her defense, she has not made it my problem and has offered to pay me to rip it out and start anew if i felt that was the best course of action but i really don’t hang crown anymore and have not in over 10 years (for those reading this, i still do door casements because i only work on doors). i consider crown to be menial work at this point and would rather stick out urbandads doors. i am weighing everything here though including considering that the parking is pretty easy on her street.
so the others see this:
i do not get as mad at the customers in this situation as i do with the contractors who do things like this. like with the two itinerants (fly by nights, gypsies, travelers, knackers; whatever offensive name we might want to call them) who charged a customer $1600 to perform a 4 hour caulking job and they did not even do it right. people like this give us all a bad name and make people suspicious and when these contractors low ball (underbid), we always have to justify our prices against their crappy work and unprofessionalism without knoc king the competition which would sound unprofessional.
urbandad, i am sorry i stole your post but it felt like an appropriate time to say it. there is stuff that has to be said that many people do not realize, especially when dealing with contractors.
andriywww1990
in General Discussion 4 years and 3 months ago
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hkapstein | 4 years and 4 months ago
I saw a post from stevecym
“and op, now that i think about that 5 panel door i ordered from dykes. i think we ordered a “shaker” door and i sticked it out with period trim – “panel molding”.
I was actually about to the same thing, adding mitered sticking to a bunch of shaker 4 panel doors. I’m trying to find a carpenter who can do this for me, because oddly most shops seem unable to do it for a reasonable price, it ends up coming out to like 250 bucks a door, which is a lot since I have like 20 doors to do. I’m considering doing it myself or hiring someone to do it at an hourly rate, because I don’t think it will take more than a week if you work smart. But am I wrong on this?
stevecym | 4 years and 4 months ago
You should come talk to me. I am not sayi g i am going to sell you on having me do it and maybe you dont want me to do it. But 250 is probably not out of line. That many doors though and set them up right, work fast 4 doors a day. Maybe a tad less.
hkapstein | 4 years and 4 months ago
Thanks steve, there’s no reason to pay that much when I can get grey market doors stock for about 135 a slab plus sea freigh, but it sure is a headache. I think what I’d do is line up 10 doors, cut the vertical trim, shoot the nails, and then do the horizontal piece by piece and repeat. The problem is, how quickly can I miter cut 640 pieces of trim, even though many of them are identical. Is there a machine that can automate this for me?
JohnHancock | 4 years and 4 months ago
This is something that Paul Valembois can do, carpenter and furniture maker/designer.
Very detail oriented
stevecym | 4 years and 4 months ago
I am not going to tell you everything here as i am running a business. My phone number is on my website. Also, reread the last line of my reply.
As far as bringing things in from outside the country. There are so many things that speak against doing that, quality being part of it. But if we want to encourage our young people to go into this work, we have to support local talent and have to support our businesses – even if they are in pa or ohio. Just so you know, in this business we use only american made products for our customers. Maybe wood from canada. Some tools from the uk or germany. Does it cost us more? You bet. But is there is a difference in quality, absolutely.
We used to order doors from ohio. Interior slabs in poplar and even with shipping it was a deal.
hkapstein | 4 years and 4 months ago
Ha thanks Steve. I understand what you’re saying, and I won’t ask you for trade secrets. The grey market doors are from the UK, it just happens they still mass produce this style there. It’s european white oak I believe, but also available in some other woods and a primed version. I generally prefer to use American speies, but I think for this it will be fine, the doors are to be painted. I’m also talking to some shops in Ohio and PA, I’ll but some of the same ones you work with.
After doing some thinking, I think a trick might be to get a shop with the right equipment to run and miter cut the mouldings for me offsite. If they have the machine, it probably won’t cost more than just running the molding anyway. But I’ll have to call some shops to find if anyone can do this. I could set up two miter saws at the right distance, and probably run three mouldings at a time, but it still over 1200 cuts! Probably 2 full days just to cut the mouldings.
If I find out a way should I post or keep in secret?
dorkofwindsor | 4 years and 4 months ago
urban dad: 10″ compound miter saw with finish blade and make a fence w / stop block. Pancake compressor with finish nail gun + some glue. rly not hard, get your setup right and go; repetitive work is easy. this guy is doing window and door casings but same idea. There are a million ideas for fences and stop blocks, you won’t need one this extensive, there are a ton on YT, but same concept:
hkapstein | 4 years and 4 months ago
Thanks DorkofWindsor. As usual, once I start to dig into it, the prices start going down. Now looking at 150 per door which is getting better. So that’s about 2250 in labor for 15 doors. 4 days work by steve’s estimate, so labor cost around 550 per day or 60 bucks an hour. With the right tools and equipment, I think we could probably get it down a little more. I can’t see getting a carpenter for less than 300 a day. So 4 days of labor would be 1200 on site with all tools supplied, maybe figure another 200 for shop materials. So perhaps around 100 per door would a pretty good price. But it may be possible to do the job in 2 days. So we’re getting close, but I have some other shops coming back soon. If you had an automatic cut off and miter machine, this job would probably be a 1 day project.
stevecym | 4 years and 4 months ago
urbandad: i think about 550 a day/60 an hour is fair here in the city. to go any lower puts pressure on people that is a little unfair and we begin to see people taking shortcuts to survive – both on the job, in society, and in their own lives (shortcuts that anyone reading this would not want in their lives, for their families). if you are dropping this stuff at a shop, ok. but if they are working on site they should be licensed and ensuring that helps keep people out of the shadows and working for the greater good, paying into the system. i can see someone starting out charging less and someone starting out can certainly get through this-
there was an interesting story on NPR yesterday about programs designed to help people by pass the traditional four year college degree programs by going to trade school and as i listened to that i thought of all the times i have heard these reporters (and people in educated circles around this city) go on about this subject without addressing the other side of it and that is, if we want Americans and our youth to gravit ate back to this work, we can not expect adults to do it on 25 dollars an hour, off this books, no protections. we can’t live like that and no one should. not in this country. (FYI: someone charging 60 an hour, doing things on the up and up is making about 25 or 30 an hour; that is a very fair wage to you and them).
they have automatic saws that cut both sides at ones. set it up and go. but that is a pricey machine and their you forgo the cost of labor for the cost of the machine. it might be a wash.
hkapstein | 4 years and 4 months ago
I hear you, man. I’m trying to get this job done at a price I can afford, and 250 a door doesn’t make it happen. I can do it myself, or import the doors for less than that. I think that’s where the machines come in. I’d love to pay 60 bucks an hour to get the job done in half the time. I’m not saying people should work for cheap and cut corners, but that we need to find a way to get the job done that works for everybody, and I’d like to get it done locally if I can.
One idea I have is to have a big moulding shop cut and miter the mouldings, and this I have quoted at about 1800 dollars, and then stick them on myself. I can probably get the mitering cost down a bit if I find a shop with a computerized mitering saw. I’m not sure how long it would take to actually nail the mouldings onto the doors, I’m thinking with a good process it shouldn’t take more than 1-2 days. Then I have to fill the nail holes, but I can probably do that when the rest of the trim is installed.
stevecym | 4 years and 4 months ago
I dont like talking money here but i can do better than 250. I was thinking 200.
stevecym | 4 years and 4 months ago
I have done so much of this that i know how to precut trim, lay it out and move.
hkapstein | 4 years and 4 months ago
First of all Steve, thank you for this offer to help. I’d love to work with you on a project, and I know you know what you’re doing, but it just feels like overkill having you trim out these doors. Do you have any interest in working on some old shutters?
Now I have made some progress on my door moulding project, and I think I can produce the result I’m looking for a good price, and still get everyone paid a fair rate!
It turns out that there is an industry that cuts and miters mouldings all day long at high efficiency in a shop, and that’s picture framing! I called a shop that makes bulk picture frames. A moulding cut to measure and mitered 45 degrees is apparently called a “chop”. Also available, a product called a “join” which is 4 mouldings nailed together to make a frame.
Oddly, no architectural moulding shop I spoke to seems to offer chops, but the first framing shop I was really helpful! The guy said he used to churn out thousands of frames a day, but had lost most of that business to China. However, he says with his setup, I could send him a cut list and he c ould produce it out in a few hours, with accuracy better than 1/16th of an inch, and I believe it. If he can make a frame I think this should be a breeze. He even offered to send a sample to make sure the fit is right.
With the mouldings cut to size, it appears we can get the mouldings attached with one day of labor, and it would not require as skilled a person to do the attachment.
Some questions are, should we nail or glue the mouldings? Nailing would require some extra work at the paint stage, but is probably easier on the install. Then, should we have the mouldings pre-joined? It makes the delivery more expensive, since they are much larger units. I feel like it doesn’t save a ton of time, but I suppose lining up the individual mouldings does take time and might not be as perfect. What do you think?
dorkofwindsor | 4 years and 4 months ago
for a door you should glue them (unless it is holding glass in) but the nails are basically just to hold while the glue dries. don’t ned many.
was that by chance the frame and moulding place in sunset park on 5th ave and 28th st?
hkapstein | 4 years and 4 months ago
Ok cool, I think that makes sense. No, the framing shop is outside the city, do you think the shop you mentioned would be able to do this? Would be easier to work with soeone locally, but I think that they manufacture frames in bulk in the city here.
stevecym | 4 years and 4 months ago
urban: in truth, i am running a business and to make that work, i have to sometimes do repetitive or mundane tasks. sticking out doors is one of them – every door that comes through this shop has to have molding work done to them. so long as people are willing to pay me and i can do it professionally, i do it. i would shine shoes if people wanted to pay me.
i read what dork says. we generally do not glue the trim in. none of the old doors we work on have the trim glued in. we never have any problems not gluing it and sometimes if we are worried about a piece pulling away, we place the brads in the middle in pairs, angling away from one another, sort of the way they guys did it a hundred years ago. i am not sure where he is coming from except perhaps the furniture making area which would be done with no nails at all. also, perhaps people think it is necessary because with modern doors, with machined styles and rails, the “trim” is part of the wood structure of the door.
i’ll add something else here and i am not saying this to you and maybe not to the others regularly on here but there are people who might need to know that job shopping is not a good idea. YOU will be ok with this because it is pretty much wisywig (what you see…) and sometimes others get lucky. I get calls from people who job shop and i stay away from them (they will not appreciate what i do). what happens when people job shop is they start calling the highest talent (the people most likely to treat the job like it was going in their own house – or better) and when they do not like the prices they hear, they keep calling until they get a price they like. I got a call from someone wanting doors done in manhattan last fall. the woman let it slip that they were calling a lot of people because with an 8 unit coop, they had to find the best price (this is why coops should not self manage; let a manager do it and he will not show you the quotes from the less qualified as he will not risk his job and does not want to deal with shoddy contractors. that way the owners don’t know about the 20% they could have saved and that 20% will not nag them and give them ulcers for the next twenty years). i told her “if price is more important to you than quality, i would rather pass”. she told me they have to go with the lowest price. i politely excused myself from the call but got an email from her later saying “best price yes, but no compromise on quality”. that was one of the most ignorant statements i have ever read. she does not understand that she will shop the job to death until she finds someone who is either willing to take the short cuts to make it happen or someone less experienced who will not put the time or quality of materials into it. something has to give; it is a recipe for disaster.
i had to say that because there might be people out there less familiar with all this and they might read what you say and realize you know a lot and are current and think “oh, this is what the smart money does, they job shop”. it is ok to do for some mundane tasks but even that, some shoddy contractors can find a way to screw those tasks up. but when it comes to craft work and things requiring a lot of skill, that is not the way to go. you need the people who have been doing this the longest.
hkapstein | 4 years and 4 months ago
Thanks Steve, I do hear you, and I may have to do something a little more interesting because jeld wen doesn’t make the panel pattern I want in an 84″ shaker, so I may have to fabricate about 4 doors. If that’s something interesting for you, perhaps we should talk. I can get them made in poplar for about 300-350 or so for a prehung unit, but with freight and headaches, I can make some room in those. That’s excluding the panel trim of course.
stevecym | 4 years and 4 months ago
no, i would rather not make interior doors. i had these people in ohio. they were great. i will look again. i think it was interior doors direct.
stevecym | 4 years and 4 months ago
part of why i wrote that about shopping jobs is just this morning i got a flurry of emails from someone who had me pre paint and deliver some trim for her – over a year ago. of course i primed and dusted and did it all. i used fine paints of europe (which she asked for and of course i go for the best, the oil; until today i did not know they made water or water borne) and she had already contracted someone to do the trim installation. ok. i was supposed to come back and fill their nail holes, sand again, spot prime, spot paint and sand 220 over all of it and tack and apply a second coat. her contractor said he’d do it all and she did not say this to me but i bet it was for 1/2 of what i would have charged. between them, they made two mistakes; she ordered the waterborne paint to go over my oil and he did not tack it off. i had her call him and ask what he tacked it with and she just wrote me and said he had no idea what she was talking about when she asked. and when i told her to ask, i told her ask “what did you tack it with” not “did you tack it” as he w ould have realized he skipped a step and said “yes” to what she was asking (i know how to force them into lying and they usually still give the wrong answer).
this is not the first time this has happen with a customer. if they swallow their pride and tell me the story and even if they admit the price was a lot less than mine, i sometimes try to help. i am not sure the best course of action but she has so far sent me about 12 emails today offering to have me replace the molding, prime and paint. i am trying to see if we can sand the waterborne off, reprime, sand and maybe reprime again and paint. and for god’s sake, use a tack cloth. if i was like some of the other people out there, i would up my prices by 25% and take advantage of this situation. i won’t do that; i will either do it for what i would charge or advise her and walk away.
btw, i had to call Fine today for this problem. i am worried if we try to sand the water borne off, it we do not get it all, it will tear and ball up and leave rough edges. so i put a question to Fine and told them what i had always been taught ( i am saying this as you commented about it on another post here): that we cannot put latex over oil. i did not respond back to you when you said we can put latex over oil as i thought perhaps things have changed in the decades since i began doing this but the gent at Fine said this is still the case, unless you prime. what i was thinking when i read what you said and that was that maybe you don’t want a hard finish over soft (oil over water) as the hard will crack and chip (never put poly over wax). that may have some truth but water over oil does not adhere and it will peel near edges; it is bad in high traffic areas on doors, etc.
in short, this is why we don’t shop jobs. this is what happens and whatever it is and even if i do my best for her, it will cost a lot more than if it had been done right the first time.. and lastly, the people who make these mistakes don’t bother reading books and calling the manufacturer (the customer made another mistake that i will not detail but the contractor should have caught it; it was bad) to get advice and even if someone tells them how to do it, it usually means more work and they cannot be bothered.