How many newbies would like to pop in, look at some of what I do and ask questions for free?

[Not your average framer]

My wife is still needing me giving her more, or less full time care following her stroke, and the weather and tempratures are still a bit cold yet, but being a newbie right now it far from easy. So, are there any newbies, who would like to come and watch me making a few things, ask plenty of questions and drink my coffee, all for no cost whatsoever. The timing is not yet possible to decide, but I'm just putting out some feelers at this stage to see if there is enough people within an easy travelling distance who would like to see how to produce their own frames and bits and pieces for their own businesses.

I have been thinking about this for a while and if life is going to be getting hard for some, maybe something like this will be some help and be really timely help at the right time. It's only a small shop, with limited space, so numbers will need to be limited, there is also a chip shop very near by so this may be helpful to some.

Any interest?

[Not your average framer]

Looking at things realistically, not all newbies are going to be able to generate particularly significant sales volume while their business is getting know, so with the best will in the world, the amount of actual productive time which generates money from customers, is quite possibily not a particularlly high percent of your working time. It is with that thought in might that every sale which you make will need to contribute enough income, not only to cover the actual amount of time, which was used to produce the item for that sale, but also to help cover at least some of the time which you spend not doing anything which generates any income at all. There are some items which I can produce in batches and I gain a lot of added speed of production by doing so. It is possible to produce, some smaller items to sell at a price which people will pay, because it is a quality product and superior to a lot of what is available elsewhere and will last them a really long time. but you can charge at least £1 a minute for you labour time that it took to produce that item.

This a very necessary aspect of how to run a small business in these difficult and demanding times. I will show those who want to come what I make and how at we will measure the time that I take to do this, so you can see what I mean. It is extremely easy to cut up waste glass, waste backing board and waste mountboard into size which are not only very easy to store, but are also in convenirnt sizes for quick dropping into saleable sizes of really nice high quality ready made frames, produced from left over bit and pieces of moulding. If you would otherwise only been throwing these bits into the dumpster, It is reasonable to say that these materials have effectively cost you nothing, but if you can make a matchig pair of moderately small frames which you were able to produce in 15 minutes to sell as a pair for £15, it is starting to makes some reasonable degree of sense?

[fitz]

I would like to do that but distance is against me. I recently enquired about a hand finishing course with Jim (Gesso and Bole) but will need further planning for this as the cost for travel and accommodation is against me right now. It would be a great advantage to some people perhaps if the experienced and expert framers were able to do a series of online presentations somehow on a variety of framing subjects and offer these for sale. I’ve bought a fair number of books on the subject and whilst I have learned from them I find them to be outdated and not meeting my expectations. To be honest I have learned more from this forum over the past few months than from the books I’ve bought. The generosity of the more experienced framers in providing answers to questions and offering support and assistance is very gratifying and greatly appreciated. Your offer too is very generous.

[Not your average framer]

Hi fitz,

Jim would be a great choice. He does a lot of really individualistic type of stuff and is is really into hand finishing. Spending time training with him, would be time and money well spent. He's got a few interesting pictures of some of his work on his website, it's nice quality work. It's well worth a look!

All the best,
Mark.

[Gesso&Bole]

I've been thinking along similar lines - I typically charge under £200 for a day's one-to-one training, which is £100 less than I was charging 10 years ago and is very cheap compared to other industries. BUT, when you also add in travel costs and time, and possibly accommodation, it can become quite expensive. Particularly for new starters who most probably have an fragile income stream.

I am considering running some group courses - possibly renting a room in a village hall or hotel in different parts of the country. That way I could set up for a couple of days in a particular location, and offer a range of courses that could be delivered to a small group - probably 4 people at a time.

This could solve the geographical problem, and because there's more people to share the costs, the price could be around £100 per day.

I'm thinking primarily of my hand-finishing course, as that does not require heavy equipment to be lugged up and down the country.

Would that be of interest to anyone, if so what parts of the country?

[fitz]

I would certainly be interested. I’m in Dunning, Perthshire.

[Not your average framer]

Hi jeremy,

That's great idea! I'm sure that you would get a good response as well. I think that there is a definite need to help so many of the newbies that are taking up picture framing in the aftermath of the covid epidemic and it must be particularly hard for them. Teaching them to create interesting items which people will want to buy and also to teach them to do the necessary handfinishing and wood staining to a really good standard and enabling them to do it with confidence and style is perhaps the best thing which we can do for them.

All the best;
Mark.

[Oldgrumpyface]

I’d certainly be interested in your hand finishing course if you came north of the border
I’m in the East Neuk of Fife which is not that far from Perth.
Regards
Allan

[Claim to Frame]

I'm not a complete newbie, but would certainly be of interest to meet up Mark and share your year's of knowledge and experience! What a generous offer you have made

[Not your average framer]

I'm waiting for the weather to warm up a bit and to get some of my shop tidied up a bit, before I get back into my shop a bit, but maybe I can give you a shout and let you come and see what I do. This will be mostly in the line of handfinishing and stacked moulding frames. I even do a demo, or two to shown some of my usual techniques.
It will be nice to meet you,
Mark.