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[Dave Martin]

Stepping back a bit to a statement that Arnold made a few posts before the Click and Clack business...

Arnold, do you feel that discussing a craftsman's hourly rate is inappropriate for a public forum? We discuss the rates of lawyers, mechanics and plumbers with no real issues, and session rate scales and (in many cases, the annual salaries paid to nationally recognized symphony bassists) are certainly available to those interested; are luthiers different somehow? I know that when I take one of my electric basses to the shop, the repairman generally tells me about how many hours he thinks a task will take (unless it's a straight-up job like replacing pickups), and I can multiply that by his hourly rate to get an idea of what the job will cost.

Or is the issue simply that it's impossible to even give an estimate of how long that sort of project will take without the instrument in question under your hands?