Re: Calling Adam Cherubini!
Sgian Dubh
>Mike, I get my figures from old hand work pricing schedules I picked up as a trainee back in the seventies. Oddly enough my pricing of contemporary work is based on the same method of pricing but updated to allow for faster machine woodworking.
The essential number to consider for this task is 2 hrs per M&T joint-- that's the old British standard hand work rate. For each multiple of the same joint knock off 5% up to a maximum discout of 30%. Therefore four mortice and tenons take 8 hours minus 20% = 6.5 hours to the nearest half hour.
This two hour number per joint allows the worker to cut squared parts to required length, set out and mark all the joints, cut the mortises, cut the tenons, test fit the joint, trim as required, apply glue, clamp up and final flushing off after the glue has set, all with hand tools only. Polish prepping procedures after assembly are priced separately, as too are initial timber squaring prior to setting out and marking the joints.
The truth is I can simply cut a mortise a lot quicker than half an hour, but if you allow the time required to do all the operations I described above, plus time required to sharpen tools, etc., I'd bet most hand workers would struggle to maintain that half hour per mortise for eight hours a day.
Similar, once in a while I like to keep the students on their toes by demonstrating the five minute dovetail. This is where I cut and assemble a drawer box set of rear through dovetails in five minutes. I usually use parts that are about 6" wide by about 3/8" thick and cut four or five tails. The only marks I have to start with are the shoulder lines. I don't carefully lay the tails or pins out and just whack at it all by eye. I get the students to time me and I can usually do it in six minutes or less, and with tight tolerances, but it certainly is frantic.
For a challenge once I entered a race to hand cut all the drawer box through dovetails at the back and the lap dovetails at the front in an hour. I managed it with five minutes to spare, and all the joints were pretty good, but it's a frenetic pace I couldn't maintain for an eight hour day.
Incidentally, the old standard charge to make a handcut dovetailed drawer complete is 8 hrs per drawer, which included things like cutting the parts to length, shooting the ends square on the shooting board, tapering the sides to fit into the opening about 7/8 of the way, bevelling the top edge and ends of the drawer front so it jams in the opening along with working the groove, marking and executing the joints, making and installing the slips complete including working the groove and with their tenon at the front, fitting the bottom, assembly, and shooting the drawer to fit into the opening. Slainte.
