Cost effective to make your own basic trim pieces?

[dinkjs]

Those of you that do finish work as a career is it cost effective to make your own basic trim pieces?  Such as coves, quarter rounds in the most common sizes?  Of course in basic materials not including someone wanting some exotic wood used on the project?

 

[peter halle]

My answer will include a term I have used frequently over the last decade or so, but not here.  TV Time.  TV Time is the time that you have available to do other stuff that might include watching tv.  That time is not included in your making a living time, but you could do some things towards makings a living if "it paid more than watching tv does".

Making my own moldings rather than buying them would in my opinion fall into this category unless the profile is not available elsewhere or the wood was exotic.  Then those moldings and their production would slide out of TV Time and into "Shop Time" and the meter would tick.

Peter

 

[builderbob]

My philosophy on this falls into a similar category as making cabinet doors. Unless truly necessary, I will purchase certain items that will then free me up to do other things either job related or give me more personal time to spend with my family. If I'm completely short on work, then it's another story. My kids are young and I prefer not to miss a beat and have any regrets when they grow up. Therefore I decide what's best for my own use of time. My projects are on a professional basis and people are paying me wether I purchase or make the specific items...as long as the quality is good then it matters not!

Bob

 

[Alan m]

peter im glad its "It's almost time".

over here at least , most of those moldings are 3 euros or more. im sure that if you were using the same ones regularly it would be worth making them your self. simple ones like 1/4 rounds and coves  etc would be easily done in large batchs  and held in stock  for the next job. the more complex ones where there is a few different cutters and multipl set ups probably arent worth it unless you had one of those moulding mahines.
i think this would be a good way to supliment your normal day rate. you could still charge the normal shop price for the mouldings .
doing this would be great to have to do on a day you got rained off or if the job fell through or got dellayed etc

 

[tiralie]

...is it cost effective to make your own basic trim pieces?  Such as coves, quarter rounds in the most common sizes?  Of course in basic materials not including someone wanting some exotic wood used on the project?

No, not unless you are planning to start a molding production. I do believe the reverse producing classical but rare molding to be cost effective as there is a premium (price) associated with the use in design. Unless you are in an area that shipping/stocking costs for common sizes of molding allows you to make them (time and overhead) for equal or less you cannot compete with production runs of standard molding profiles.
When a molding or profile is not available in the wood species required for your project you should you make your own either by by hand as Richard Leon has done with his wall cabinet in cherry, altering an existing profile or creating a new one by building it up with other profiles pieces.

On a recent project I designed a cabinet with a molding and later discovered that I could not get it in the profile. The next  closest solution was to modify a large crown molding with cyma profile into a bed molding.

Tim

 

[semenza]

For readily available profiles I don't think it is worth making them unless available quality is a problem or , as Peter said , it is during "TV time".  But there have been times that I have  made 20' or less of cove , 1/4 rnd etc.  the night before I needed it because it would take just as much time and effort to drive to where ever and buy it.

Seth