Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting How much labor would you charge to build this?

It will take me around three 8 hour days to build it. It will be 15’ tall. I’ve built a half dozen, but they were for me or kinfolks. I’m thinking 1000.00 plus material
Too cheap? Too much?? Ladder bolts on platform. I’ll make the landing out of 1 1/2 square tubing, slip in 2” square tubing welded to frame, so it’s not welded on like in the pic. I built this for son in law about 4 years ago.

Material will be around 600.00, so it cost the guy 1600.00 to get it built.

With tools and all, $50 an hour.

Time and materials job.

If I did it for 1000 and it took 24, that only 41.00. He will want a set price. 1200.00 would be 50.00 an hour. I think I can do it in 16 hours, maybe

Good thought, thank you. 50.00 an hour is cheap, but he pays cash and will bring me the materials. I’ve done other welding work for him. I like him or I wouldn’t fool with this. He wants it by Sept 30.

Seems fair ,Hanco, if you like the guy

Hard call.
Friend? Acquaintance? Stranger?

Doing it for money? Something to do, that you enjoy?
Something that you see as a PITA, but don't want to say No!


A friend? Does he have skills, willingness to reciprocate in kind?



$1k sounds cheap if it's for money.
$40/hr including your electricity, and filler.

Reasonable if it's a paying hobby.

Maybe expensive if for a friend.

Too expensive if it's for a friend who will come over and help you when you need it.


Too cheap if you'd rather not.

He is a good guy. I like building this kind of thing anyway. Built feeders, worked on his trailers, all kinds of crap for him. He offers to help, but he would be in my way. When I work alone, I prefer to be by myself.


I haven’t built anything in three weeks, getting bored.

Built this out out scrap early in the summer, took a day and a half.

Used to be a guy out of ( Longview? Lufkin?)
that sold similar towers on cr*igslist east Texas

You might look to see if he's still doing it
and get a rough idea
He had a welding shop or something like that

Those are nice by the way

I'm building something similar, but only
about 2 feet high for a ground blind to
keep varmints from thinking there's a
room for rent underneath

I’ll check on that. Thank you.

A close rule of thumb is sale price is 2x the cost of material. If there's fine detail or finish work, then that's additional.

Is that including the box ?

That sounds like the way to go. I was close to that.

No just the metal work. I hate wood working after building my house. It would cost 400.00 in wood, hinges, etc.

He is on his own on building the stand.

I think your being Fair with him all the way around. It's definitely Quality as your work skills ring loud and clear. Let alone the layout and pre-planning engineering!
Nice Work.

HS 58

Price seems fair if I was looking. They're not my thing but I often see such things and that price is in-line.

These are made from crap steel and they want $1295:

https://www.outdoorsforless.com/d15t/15-foot-tower-for-double-blynd.html


I have a Muddy blind with the bolt together Chinese steel frame. It's cheap. I would think $1500 for something welded from tube steel would be a heck of a deal. Nice work Hanco.

looking at the quality of your product it would be cheap at twice the price. that tower from outdoorforless would scare me! EMT? not this brown duck.

$1200 plus material

If I wanted to buy one it'd be $3500 and the only one available by Sept 30 would be from China. If I wanted to build them for money I couldn't recover the cost of materials and my back would hurt for a month. YMMV.

LOL

I need to weld Made in China on it. Bought material today, a little over 700.00, but he told me this morning he wants it 5 foot X 6 foot. I had to get a second piece of 3x3 angle iron. That’s another 100 dollar bill. I told him 1200.00 this morning for my labor.