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No offense, were I you, the first thing I would do is take into consideration your reputation. If you build saddle racks for her from cherry & she is content with your work, keep it that way!
She will say good things about your work.
For no more price difference than there is between cherry & pine, you'd be a fool not to use cherry. You will never make pine look like cherry, & it will not stand the abuse that hardwood will. Poplar either. The first dig of a spur, or other tack hits that wood, your reputation just went down the toilet.
If you already have a prototype built, and have the measurements & bf it will take to build each trunk, as mentioned, figure your estimate with cherry, & go from there. Best of Luck.
Sawdust703
head sawdust maker
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you may have saved by purchasing the pine, but lost trying to make it look like cherry.
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If a stained pine/poplar/maple board splinters it won't be Cherry looking anymore. But a Cherry board will still be Cherry.
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Location: Columbia, SC
Why don't you explain the options to her and left her choose: Pine or poplar to save a few bucks, but with issues; or cherry for a little more $$ but a perfect match. Her choice.
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I tried staining the pine prototype I am making and realized why I hate staining. It looks like crap mostly due to my technique than anything else. I am going to load up some shellac with transtint to mask the ugly as much as I can. My wife can use it out in our barn, nothing to match out there. So my client is not getting an option. It is going to be cherry or nothing. Now I need to see if she is willing to pay the price for these. I sure wouldn't pay the price I am going to quote. I did find people charging more and a lot less than my cost so we will see.
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"She wants the saddle racks to match so things look uniform."
If you use pine, I hope you are a wizard with finishing and future patina.
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All I can add to this is:
The price someone is willing to pay has nothing to do with how much, or how little, it costs you to make it. For example, you could never justify $1000 for a phone based on the cost of manufacture. So why do some people happily spend that much for one? Because they perceive the value to be worth that much to them. As craftsmen we have to figure out the value our work has to a customer. That's the price we need to charge for it. Of course you have to understand what your costs are, but that's only to determine how much profit (or loss) we will make on the sale.
Your competition is an on-line supplier at $115. You are local, you are offering a custom product specific to your customer's needs and wants. Seem to me you should be able to charge more than $115.
John
