Looks like a nice day to be in the workshop. The sun is shining but it’s very cold. My workshop is in my basement, where it is fairly warm.

Winter has never really agreed with me.

Today, I will be working on a small wooden box that I am making for someone. It’s an intricate little thing, requiring a fair amount of precision. So, I’m being very careful while making it to try to keep it as close to the specifications as possible.

The box is for a photographer, actually. It goes on the back of a 100-year-old large format camera and holds a glass plate in place for exposure. It’s not something that someone can just go buy in a store. No kit is available in a flat pack. It’s a 100% custom object and I’ve needed to figure out the best way to design it while making it.

That, of course, has made it take longer to make than many other things. If you want me to make you an end table for your couch, if I have the wood I can have something for you in a few hours. The glue would still be drying, but it would be almost complete, minus the finish. What that means is I can give you some idea of cost fairly easily. A custom table is still a table. There are design options that are standard.

But every now and then someone wants something that is actually custom in every possible way. And the use of an object can further influence how particular the design is to be. Something that looks straightforward may take much longer than you anticipate because of required precision of the parts. Sometimes, just ensuring that your saw is cutting something 13mm wide takes a very long time. In my instance, I had to tighten the clamping mechanism of my fence because I thought it was moving. Don’t want one end of the piece 13mm and the other end 13.1mm.

Precision adds time, as does uncertainty over design. I have to make this according to dimensions measured off a camera that I have never actually seen. Building completely from a description of use and placement and what the thing will attach to is truly custom. And then there is the gnawing idea that it will be finished and it will not be right.

Anyway, the point of my little story here is that it is impossible to charge sufficiently for such things. The amount of time spent on it cannot be included in the bill. Well, it could be, but then no one would ever pay it. There is, in spite of a thing’s complexity, a maximum value for any thing. That’s why it is always better to try to make a dozen of something you’ve never made before, if you plan on selling them. You won’t recover the cost of your time spent on figuring out how to design and then fumbling through a bit of trial and error in the process of making a single custom thing.

In this instance, there is then the fact that it’s extremely unlikely I’ll ever need to make another one. So, the work that goes into designing and fiddling with it to get it right doesn’t even lend itself to refining an idea for the next time you do it.

Luckily, the process is enjoyable. If I really disliked doing it, I wouldn’t do it at all. And it’s being made as a favour. I’ll get paid something for it, an amount I think is fair for what it is. I’m sure there are people that could whip this thing out, off the top of their head, in a couple of hours, and it would be perfect.

Still, it makes me long for rough carpentry. Measurements go to the quarter inch, things get slammed together with nails, you can throw things around, the tools end up looking like they’ve been run over by a truck, and you’re out in the sun….

But it is a very cold day. Best to stay in the workshop.