Not looking to make any big profits but as a college stundent I would like some extra "fun" money to cover some of my fishng expenses. I have made rods for friends and family and made about $1500 for making about 20 rods for them. I didnt charge a price, they bought the parts and they paid me what they wanted when their rods was done.

Now I buy everything retail so can I really make any money off this? I am an average rod builder but everone I have seen likes me rods.

AL - there are a wide range of considerations here. To be as brief as possible here, an amount of ~ $100 for your labor & skill ABOVE & BEYOND the cost of the ALL the rod parts is the builder's fee most often proposed for a simple rod-build. Nothing fancy.

Last year, 2005, in RodMaker Magazine, Volume 8, there was a 3-part series on the PRICING of custom rods, in Issues # ?, ?, ?. I think the first installment had the pricing of an ordinary / basic custom rod. Back Issues of RMM are $7 each.

Even after reading & researching this, you will still have to decide for yourself what your time, labor and skills are worth to you and to your customers. At 20 rods and $1500 so far, it sounds like you are off to a very good start. That’s ~$75 each.

Just be careful not to over-extend yourself or undervalue your services & product. People are inclined to expect a lot for a little, and if you give it to them, they’ll ask for even more for even less. Train them & yourself to exchange a fair deal & everybody will be happy.

You should find a way to price the rod project that reserves as your proprietary information what the component costs are, and what your so-called "profit" is. It ain't really a pure "profit", because you have time, labor & mental energy involved. It’s a wage.

And as a college student, I can tell you that you had dang-well better make ding-dang sure that YOUR STUDIES in COLLEGE COME FIRST, before your commitment to your customers’ rod orders, or your personal interest in rod-building gets the better of you. We don’t call rod-building an addiction for nuthin’, ya know. It’s as bad as nicotine.

If you flunk out of college because of enjoying fishing & rod-building too much, you’ll be eating macaroni & cheese and drinking phissh-water beer and dating left-over ladyfish for the rest of your life, trying to support yourself on a rod-builder’s slave wages. And all because the short-term goal (pocket money in college now) messed up the long term goal (bigger $$$bucks & salary later). You have the rest of your life to fish & become an accomplished rod-builder. No rush.

Alright, I was trying to be brief, and I’m not doing a very good job of it. Just remember the rock musician’s advice: “Don’t quit your day job!”
Good Luck, Al. … -Cliff Hall+++, Gainesville, FL-USA*****

Hi Al,
Actually, you just answered your own question. You built 20 rods, put $1500 in your pocket,
(all profit except maybe for the cost of CP, epoxy, and rodbond ect.) and probably had a great
time in the process! "Possitive Cash Flow" Usually, having a great time is expensive!
"negitive cash flow" You do the math!

Your in the right place for learning how to increase that profit margin!

Good luck and have more fun!

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

Al:
Figure how long it takes to build the everage rod. Figure how much you want to make hour. times that by 10% to cover unseen expences and use of your tools that will have to be replaced or repaired as they were out over time, and you will have an Idea of what you need to make.

Personally I don't do any thing for less then $70.00 per hour. Some rods can be done in 1-1/2 hours some take as long as 3 hours depending on what they want

If they want your product they pay your price or go some were else. You should also be making money off the parts. Don't forget to add in taxes.

Your making $75 rod, less materials used in the constructions which you may or may not pass on. I have a materials charge which amounts to half of what I use retail, wholesale its a wash. Want to make the rest of the profit possible above the $75; you need to buy wholesale and sell the componentsto the customer retail, then depending on the cost of the items you can make it more worth your while. I can't build a rod in three hours,(let alone expect $70 an hour) not glueing up and turning grips, but I do not have a power tool for every occasion/operation. Making the extra profit has its drawback, you have to do quarterly sales, sales tax and some distributors want pretty big inital orders and store fronts before they will do business with you. The big up front orders the get you in the door for smaller as needed orders the rest of the year. You can make money at it if you can draw from all sourses and work efficently but I do 20 construction things now that I didn't when I started rod building. The customer didn't get, what I term the better rods until I had 30 rods under my belt and built up alot of engineering related construction advances. I see alot more of the big picture and how each item on the clients WISH list effects other related items of features.

Steve

Can not find any photo's of your work on the photo board ?? None there ? Wanted to see your work.

Don't forget about Uncle Sams Excise tax even if you only charge for just the cost of the parts the sportfishing excise tax has to be paid. Check out the back issue of Rodmaker Magazine volume 7 issue #3 page 24. Tom Kirkman also did a great seminar on the subject at the show in Charlotte this year I hope he will do another one next year.

Thad

Bill:
I don't have a digital camera that I can use to down load pictures onto the site. I have a very expensive old fashioned Pintex camera. that takes great pictures. So I have just never seen the need to buy a digital.

$70 an hour. WOW!!!!! My hat's off to you! That would make my last rod worth just about as much as my boat. My last grip took me 4 1/2 hours

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

FYI - Digital files (*.JPG or *.GIF) for the images produced by a 35mm film-based camera can be generated by many of the larger film develpment companies. When submitting the 35mm film for developing, look on the envelope. Select the option to have a compact disk (CD) made of the images, in addition to the paper print sizes you want. There will be a CD of all the photographic images, probably as a *JPG file format (or perhaps a *.GIF format). Of course, this carries an additional fee.

This option to have the film translaled into images of a digital format will in no way improve the quality of the original image, the abilities of the camera, or the lighting conditions. It seems like the lighting conditions and the ability of the camera to do close-focus work is the real limiting constraint for most rod-builders who want to take useful pictures of their rod work.

Any time the subject of cameras suitable for photographing fishing rods comes up on this RBO Forum, it seems that until ~ $400 is spent on the correct camera, that the image quality for close-up rod work is no where near a quality that can communicate the character of the subject involved. Having tried this myself with an ordinary ("cheap") film camera a couple of times, about all I could get was a sense of general layout and color. Useful details were awash. -Cliff Hall+++

Steve
I must be in the middle of this price thing ? I get some people that say I'm to expensive, then others that say I am reasonable ?? Go figure.

You'll always hear that. Tell them to go to wallmarts. If you did some checking you would find a lot of rod makers in that range. I know one who's price works out at about $100.00 per hour. He told me he gets$150.00 labor per rod and that it takes him about 1-1/2 hour per rod. Then there's the mark up on parts

How can anyone make a decent rod in an hour and a half. You can't glue up and shape a grip in that time

Mike

You may not can, But don't limit others by comparing them to your abilities.

It's not a matter of abilities. It's a matter of the physical time that a given task takes and the amount of actual "custom" work versus repetitive "production" work that is being done. I'll agree that a basic "Wally World" rod can be "assembled" in an hour and a half but, in my opinion, there is a major difference between that and a custom rod! The fact that a builder is assembling it instead of a factory doesn't automatically make it "custom" it just makes it a limited run production rod

Mike

Steve,
A simple flatbed scanner can digitize any of your standard film photos. I would love to see
your 1 1/2 hr. and 3 hr. rods.

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

Me too

I don't have a flat bed scanner either. But I will see what I can do.