Shaun,

Half hour on the through tenon is about right.

For us the average time on a 2x4 mortise 8" long would be closer to 15 min. (mortiser).

I would hope to layout and cut the braces all at once and get it to around 20 min. per brace (including layout with a template).

that's probably a good number for both halves of the scarf.

That would not include set up, layout, sharpening, material handling, supervision, project management, sanding, oiling, waxing, etc (as you noted).

I think we don't talk about this too much because we are afraid that some people who are watching might be the ones we gave a quote to last week and they might crunch some numbers and think we are trying to charge too much if they think they know how long it takes us to cut a joint. In reality anyone that would try to do that based on such incomplete information is probably not a likely prospect anyway, so I'm not too worried about it.


As for thinking your guys are taking too long -- some people are good at cutting joinery fast and others never will be. We've had guys that were really slow, but did neat work. We tried to keep them busy doing fussy stuff and keep the other guys doing the bulk of the production. That doesn't always work out, though.

What we found is that a carpenter who can lay out and cut timbers fast and cleanly without supervision or whip cracking and who can track from task to task without bogging down is an extremely valuable asset for a company our size and not easy to find (at least around here).


At the end of the day, your numbers are yours and mine are mine and they don't translate too well. Thorough record keeping is the only way to dial in the accuracy of your estimating. Different tooling, different conditions, different wages and different costs make estimating and pricing a pretty individualized thing.