I shouldn't complain

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Jay H

PFG, Picture Framing God
Joined
Dec 8, 2003
Posts
9,908
Loc
KY
Because at least they gave me a 5' allowance total for the two bundles. This picture came after my trying to use the first two bundles that looked exactly like these last two. (SIGH)

badmoulding.jpg


NC may have retail framing thing down but they sure do have a long way to go in making moulding.
 
What did they do, Jay ...measure the amount of tape they used to come up with th 5' allowance?

:icon11:
 
Ordered 10 foot of moulding from LJ this week (part of a very large order). I knew that this particular profile came in that length. I got two sticks with 2 foot allowance on each. So I get to pay for 16 foot when all I wanted was one length of 10 foot. Couldn't they have just pulled a good stick? It would have been different if I needed twelve feet.
 
I needed 70' I got 76' and I think i'm going to be about 30' short. (SIGH)
 
Makes you just want to return it all, order it joined, and make your supplier dig through 150 feet of moulding for that 16x20 frame you need!
 
Look on the bright side, Jay.

Now you can make that dozen 4” x 5” frames you’ve always wanted.
 
Anyone take Jay Goltz's "Do the Math" class? This is a perfect example of why it can actually be MORE PROFITABLE for us to do exactly that....chops! Joins! How much time did it take you, and waste, to cut around all of that?? And how much money did it actually cost you (be honest, here)?. Figure a chop invoice. Do the math.

My view on this has definately changed since last week's class..what an eye-opener!..and Jay's (H)example is a perfect one, and not such an "odd" experience. It's happening more and more often. Last year, , I cut around nearly 40 feet of warped/dinged/allowanced moulding to get a not-even-acceptable 11x14 frame! Sent it all back, and pulled every corner sample from that vendor off the wall. Unacceptable!

My new v-nailer is on the way, but I will be taking advantage of one distrubutor's Framer's Assist (join, for chop price) one vendor's Straight Cut pricing, and the other one's Join program....wherever possible. My time and shop space (leftovers, scraps) are becoming more and more valuable by the day. How may I better take advantage of that?

I verymuchdon't like (I'm trying to remove the word "hate" from my vocabulary!) those stickers,too...really gums up my chopper blades! Ha!
 
99.9999999999999% of the time doing the work yourself will always be cheaper.

Even in this case. I'm making one 40x30 frame and 7 18x20s. Ordering chops would have practically doubled my costs. Now its been proven that I lie blatently about the amount of time it takes me to join a frame but I could order almost twice the moulding I needed the add on labor and still be cheaper than ordering chops. Those are the biggest grift ever invented.
 
Well sure as I say that, I'm ordering maybe my 4th chop ever. The last three I ended up regreting. Its a $9/ft moulding and its an 8x10. I'm not risking buying a 10' stick of it so I'm ordering it chopped. It will raise my costs significally but save me money by not eating 1/2 the stick. Now if I had to build 4 of those 8x10s you couldn't force me to order those chopped.
 
Jay, I thought so too, until I actually did the math...based on my shop's rate, and, being a one-person shop, how valuable is my turn-around time? I'm up to my ears in framing, and can ill-afford this sick time off, but yes, the difference in the length-vs-chop/join invoices are attractive, but what is my time worth? How much more work can I accomplish? If I only look at my invoices, I'm screwed! I have to pay someone to chop and join those, why not someone else (vendors!) besides me, giving me time to do the other stuff I need to do, in order to grow my business? (and take time off to be sick!)
Trust me, I've been an advocate, for over 25 years, of "I chop and join my own frames!" As of last week, I'm converted. I did the math. I'm convinced. I love my Morso, my 8 antique Stanley vises, and my underpinner, and will continue to use all of them, but not as often as I have for the past years, or until I have the luxury of being caught-up I hope I never have that much down time, enough to chop and build all of those 5"x7" frames from all that leftover stuff with the stickers on 'em!
 
Jay H said:
Well sure as I say that, I'm ordering maybe my 4th chop ever. The last three I ended up regreting. Its a $9/ft moulding and its an 8x10. I'm not risking buying a 10' stick of it so I'm ordering it chopped. It will raise my costs significally but save me money by not eating 1/2 the stick. Now if I had to build 4 of those 8x10s you couldn't force me to order those chopped.
Click to expand...
You beat me to it Jay......and I'm happy you've seen the "light". Good thing about ordering chops, is, if it isn't acceptable, they have to do it again...until it's right! And not at your expense. So...raise your prices! Even a 5% or a 10% raise (insignificant to your customer, but huge to our bottom line at the end of the year!)

Open your eyes and give value to your time....you can't get that back!
 
I think it all depends if you are working at capacity Val. If you have the time it is cheaper to do length. If you are all covered up with work and pressed for time chops or joins are the way to go. If I were all covered up with work I wouldn't have time to be responding to this so, you pretty much know I am a length kind of girl. But, I have been known to do chops when I am busy and even joins on certain rush jobs that will take away from my regular work.

Edited to add after seeing Val's last post................I usually order length but I do price out at chop prices when pricing an order for a customer.
 
I'm with Val this week. I've had a project from H*ll with Nurre Caxton's Ilana moulding. I ordered 30 or 40 feet in length, for one large frame and 2 mid-size frames. Had to send half the moulding back for replacement, it was so visibly warped. The replacement stuff wasn't much better, and I've been spending hours trying to fix the corners of two of the frames (including the big one) with wood filler, putty, you name it. I shouldn't have to spend a minute of time doing that. It has nothing to do with my cutting and joining, either, so don't go there. The moulding is cr*pola. Yesterday I finally had my Come To Jaysus moment, and ordered the two frames I needed...joined. I'm already almost a month late on this project, and I simply can't futz around any more on it. The mid-size join will cost me about $55, and the big one about $75, plus shipping, and compare that to the hours I've spent inspecting, rejecting, cutting, sanding, joining, forcing that 4th corner together as best I can, then filling with wood filler, then filling with more wood filler, then filling with more wood filler, then filling with more wood filler, then filling with more wood filler, then masking the corner so I can paint the wood filler gold, yada yada yada.

If the moulding was ugly and I couldn't sell it, it would already be in the dumpster. It is attractive and I can sell it, but I've gone into my POS and changed the pricing to chop, and that's the only way it stays on my wall.
 
Jay H said:
NC may have retail framing thing down but they sure do have a long way to go in making moulding.
Click to expand...

It's not the manufacturers, it's the overwhelming demand for quality raw materials. Though your instance there is a bit over the top. They need to pick that up and replace it at their cost with usable product.



Val, Jay G's comments make sense, but did anyone ask him how much chop he buys?
 
Yes, if you are constantly at or around 100% capacity then you have to do what you have to do. So honestly, how many of us sustain even 60% capacity? I don't know many framers that do. The only reasonable suggestion for chops that I have ever seen were extreme cases like you describe or you can't join the frame (and I think you shouldn't show it then).

Long term there is no way on Earth this is a reasonable solution. Its a get rich quick scheme for suppliers and shops tend to take the bait all to often. Its been a while since we've broken down some actual numbers but we have in the past. The labor/overprice chops have never added up. Of coarse I'm just a simple framer who is trying to knock down a living. If I were trying to sell a class I certainly would invent some special math to prove whatever extreme suggestion I wanted. Just out of curiosity does Bella sell chops? Why doesn't suppliers just order chops if it's so labor intensive?
 
PaulSF said:
I ordered 30 or 40 feet in length, for one large frame and 2 mid-size frames. ... The mid-size join will cost me about $55, and the big one about $75,
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WOW $4.50/ft joined? What did the length cost - $1.15? Is this one of those really complicated things we go through to get to the Paul Harvey moment - "The rest of the story?"

Joins might make a teeny tiny bit of sense under extream cases. Joins....I've never entertained the idea but I would under a super dooper once in a lifetime beyond my control never going to happen again and somebody is getting fired event.
 
looks like you have to make lots of little frames cutting around the flaws...send it back!!!
 
Hey Rick. I'm not sure what your talking about but I don't have a LION anything that I know of.
 
Jay H said:
WOW $4.50/ft joined? What did the length cost - $1.15? Is this one of those really complicated things we go through to get to the Paul Harvey moment - "The rest of the story?"

Joins might make a teeny tiny bit of sense under extream cases. Joins....I've never entertained the idea but I would under a super dooper once in a lifetime beyond my control never going to happen again and somebody is getting fired event.
Click to expand...

I told you the moulding (NC's Ilana line), so you can do the math as easily as I can. I won't get too specific on the actual prices, but believe me, the added expense is well worth the hassles this one moulding has caused me. I'm weeks behind on this project, as well as many others, because of the need to finish a 200-piece commercial job a bit early, compounded by going to WCAF and then being sick since I've returned. Normally I wouldn't do this, I would order length, but sometimes you just need to eat the added expense. In this case, I've been pulling my hair out trying to deal with flawed product, and I decided it's time for my vendor to see what I've been going through. And like I said, if I couldn't sell this moulding, it would be in the trash. As it is, it sells, and the cost of chops and joins isn't prohibitive.

It seems like I go through this dance with my vendors periodically. They get it into their heads that they can send me moulding so warped you can use it in an archery competition. So I have to keep sending it back, and eventually they stop sending me obvious garbage. Then 6 months will go by, and it starts to happen again, and I send the moulding back, and so on. For a while recently, the local LJ distribution center had someone picking mats that consistently picked the wrong mats and miscounted and left out mats. This went on for about 3 weeks, and then all of a sudden everything got better. I'm sure I wasn't the only one out here raising a fuss.

Jay, I know you're a savvy businessman, so I hope that you have negotiated a favorable join deal from your primary suppliers. Other people have referenced such deals here in the past, and I won't go into details, but they do exist. You have to ask, because you certainly won't get it otherwise. And of course, in those really extreme cases, get on the phone, call your rep, explain the hassle you're going through, and get it as a one-time deal.
 
As many of you know I stock quite a bit of length. Funny thing is the length that I buy by the box is almost always perfect. It is the stuff that I get 20-50ft of that is total junk. It almost seems like when they are pulling for their own chops that they cherry pick better stock and leave the carp for the next sucker to order short length.

Dave
 
I got what I needed with about a stick to spare.

What to do now? I have more unusuable waste than I think I should have but its all cut into little pieces. I'm not inclined to send back a box of 1' pieces then complain. That's a little like eating 9/10 of a steak then asking the manager to buy your meal. However I am unsatisfied.

Keep in mind that photo is about 1/2 that total order and the other 4 sticks looked just like that. It wasn't until I had chopped it up and learned the last two bundles were the same that I thought to take that picture.

Do I move on with life. Do I send that picture back with the truck driver to the owner of the company with a note that said "Are you serious"? What now?
 
Depending on how I feel that day, I would approach this one of two ways. First, send the picture with the driver and ask is there any way you can get better product in the future. Or second, I would be relived that I fulfilled my order and promptly take the sample down and boomerang it into the big brown target out back.

Like I say, depends on how I felt that day.
 
Or both? That came from NCMoulding btw...if that helps?
 
Jay, I would definitely send that picture to someone at the company with responsibility -- first choice would be your rep, but if you have no rep, then send it to the company president. And don't send it via your driver. You want to make sure the picture gets to the intended recipient. They need to know that sending out material like that is unacceptable.

As for the waste, you could take it with you in your car, and when you notice someone tailgating you, just pop the window open and chuck out a stick.
 
One company I deal with - if the lengths have those '1 foot allowed' stickers on will, say, only charge me for 40' of 60' sent.

But I ordered 60' - what makes them think the useable 40 (or so) foot will do the job?

Another will just send an extra 20' - not always the solution, but a better one!

That lot in the photo would have resulted in a phone call - "What do you want me to do - throw it, or do you want to collect it? - if the latter, make it tomorrow, just after the credit note arrives"
 
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