 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: wanabe
Date: 2014-07-08 00:20
This is something that I do. I buy inexpensive (NEVER "cheap") instruments and fix them up and either resell them or donate them depending on how they turned out. I am retired from the business world and started doing this as a hobby. It grew rather surprisingly quickly and now I'm doing about three per week.
I never (yeah, I know, never say never) sell an instrument that has or has had had any type of serious damage, i.e. cracks, broken tenons, soldered/broken keys, etc. These all go into the "parts bin". I never donate a broken instrument. I give away those that have solid well done repairs.
My question is how much should I add to the price of a clarinet ( above the purchase price and cost of the parts) to justify my work and the parts that I have put into it? O.K., I can already hear your questions.
Q. How long do you work on the average clarinet?
A. On the average it takes me 8 hours to complete a clarinet from start to finish.
Q. What do you do to it?
A. Strip it down to the bare body (I leave the posts and the springs on it).
Q. What else?
A. I clean the body with alcohol inside and out. I then clean all of the needle springs, remove the leaf springs from the keys and clean them. I then give the body a sweet almond oil bath for 24 hours.I then give the keys a good cleaning in a hydrosonic parts cleaner. I then shine up all of the keys on a buffing wheel using glass cook-top cleaner as the polishing agent (now you know why I took all of those leaf springs off). Next comes replacing the sound (key noises) dampening corks on the keys. The corks that need the thickness to be selected to give the proper key lift height get done as the keys are installed. Next the body comes out of the oil bath and gets dried off and the tone holes carefully inspected and individually cleaned. Then all of the tenon corks are replaced. Next comes a full repad of the keys. I usually use double bladder pads, but if a customer wants a specific type, I'll accommodate that. The difference in costs among the various pads wont make a sign significant difference in the total cost of the project, so I don't bother with trying to get every last penny out of this. Then the keys are re-installed, corked as needed and adjusted. The last part is the final adjustments (crows foot, etc.)
Q. How do you test your work?
A. I get the fourteen year old girl that lives next door to play test them for me. She is MUCH, MUCH better on the clarinet than I am. I pay her by working on her clarinets (she has two of mine) for free. That works out just fine, because I have yet to have to do anything to one of mine.
Q. Anything else?
A. Yes, I always include a mouthpiece and ligature (whatever I have at hand) and I disinfect and clean and buff them up too. I clean out the inside of the case with upholstery cleaner and the outside with Armor-All.
The end result of all of this is a really nice looking and fully functional clarinet that should not need attention for a long while.
Right now I'm adding $100.00 to the the final price for all of this. There have been several people that tell me that I'm not charging enough, but then again I have had a couple of people say that I charge too much.
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Author: dperreno
Date: 2014-07-08 01:38
My opinion? You could ask for more. But you can always give discounts to anyone you wish - friends, family, students, etc.
An economist would answer that you should charge what the market will bear. If it is an instrument that you purchased and renovated, the number of hours you put into it is somewhat irrelevant - the price should be what similar instruments in similar condition sell for. Ebay is actually the closest thing to a perfect market for finding out what something is worth.
If you are doing the work on someone else's instrument, then you need to agree on a price beforehand for the work that the customer wants done. Of course, you are free to set a minimum amount of renovation work, such as requiring that any loose or missing cork is replaced (or all cork replaced) and the keys are oiled and regulated. Oiling the wood, buffing the keys, cleaning the case - those are all what I would call "above and beyond" services for which you can charge extra.
Doug
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Author: Steven Ocone
Date: 2014-07-08 02:46
What is the hourly rate for mechanics, electricians, plumbers etc in your area. If I drop off a computer to get fixed there is often a $60 minimum charge whether it actually gets fixed or not.
Deal with people who know the value of your work. If these people say that you aren't charging enough then it's time to raise your prices.
Steve Ocone
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Author: Ben Shaffer
Date: 2014-07-08 04:38
Hey Jim, I might be getting a Clarinet that needs to be overhauled...please contact me at Bennc2@aol.com
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Author: wanabe
Date: 2014-07-08 05:29
I really don't want to work on other peoples instruments. It just isn't my cup of tea. I am really interested in getting some older very much under valued clarinets back into circulation. Right now I am concentrating on all things Leblanc. I am working on an "N" Noblet model 45 for myself right now. I will use it as a back up to my Noblet Artist. The reason the original question is that I really don't want to become or for people to think that I'm a "flipper". That is, someone that buys cheap, jacks up the hype and the price and flips it out to the market. No, I'm one of those that hates clarinet brand snobbery and at the same time wants to try to do some little bit to combat the soaring prices of clarinets. Hey, I can build you a nice Normandy 4 for half the price of a Chinese CSO.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2014-07-08 08:54
For what you described $100 is a low price, though this can depend on your country/area and what you want or need. Obviously in some places they can build a whole clarinet for less than that...
What I do is just decide on an hour rate that I think is fair for both me and customers. This includes time, general supplies and tools. Price can be higher if I need to use an unusual part (i.e. I don't want all customers to have to pay for the needs of a few). I don't charge the highest prices I can.
I know I wouldn't be able to do what you described, with all the many tools a supplies I need for that, for $100, unless I had another job financing it. It's not clear if that is your situation or not. If this is your main job then I guess you know whether you are losing, breaking even, etc.
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2014-07-08 11:52
As you are not a professional repairer and do not rely upon the returns from your repair work to put food on the table then your requirement re costing are somewhat different from the professional.
I'm in a somewhat similar position, and while I don't need to make a profit from my effort, I think that it should make enough to be self-funding. I look for potentially good student/intermediate level instruments at low prices, do whatever work needs doing on them and then sell them, mainly into the student market. I do not necessarily do a full repad or recork, but will if it is needed. I'm a great believer in the old adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Keywork is regulated and polished and bodies are oiled as required.
My prices are considerably lower than those charged by local retailers for used instruments and the instruments that I sell are in excellent repair and covered by a warranty.
I sell some, mainly Albert Bb's, to jazz players, who seem to like them. When pricing, I generally add the cost of the instrument to the cost of parts, add $100 to that and that is the price charged for a student-level instrument. If I'm selling an instrument to a buyer who can obviously afford to pay more then I'll charge a bit more for it. It sounds a bit arbitrary, but it works for me and the customers seem to be happy with it.
Tony F.
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2014-07-09 00:08
$12 per hour seems a very modest rate for the USA - it equates to little more than the national minimum wage in the UK and USA wages are normally quite a bit higher.
Still if you are happy with doing your bit for society and recycling and don't actually need to earn the money then good on you.
At least all the time you spend working on instruments is time you are not available to go out spending money yourself so there is some sort of payback there (I least I try to tell myself when looking at my rates).
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Author: wanabe
Date: 2014-07-09 07:14
Tony F - Your and my pricing plans are identical. I'm glad to see that someone else thinks along the same lines that I do and that I'm not far off base on the pricing. Thanks for that input.
Speaking of Alberts, I'm looking forward to diving into a matched pair of LP Preufers ln A and Bb. The springs are real different from what I'm used to, and these will be my first try at an Albert system instrument, but I'll eventually screw up enough courage to start on them. The alto clarinet that I just finished boosted my confidence a lot.
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