How to Get a Quote on Something Nobody Can Quote

When a shop won't give you a firm price on a new idea, it's easy to assume they're padding the job or hiding something. My view is the opposite. Nobody, the shop included, knows what a genuinely new part will take, and a firm number on it is a guess with a signature under it.

You can still get a quote you can rely on. Split the project. List what is already known, prove the uncertain part for an agreed budget with a check-in, and then quote the rest on what was learned.

Make two lists

Most of any project is already solved. Before you ask for a quote, write two lists.

• What do we already know how to do? A metal bracket that needs cutting, a shape that has been molded before, a standard fastener.
• What are we not sure about? Whether a feature will work, or how much effort it will take to make it work.

The first list can be quoted today. The second list is where the cost and the risk sit, and it is usually shorter than people expect.

Prove the unknown on its own

Take a bracket with a snap fit. The bracket is simple. The snap is the question. Will it hold? Will it break? How much force does it take to close?

So don't make the whole bracket. Make the snap, in a few versions, and test them. How you make it matters. A 3D print tests the shape and the feel of a snap, but not its strength, because printed parts are weaker across their layers and the printing material isn't the production resin. Print it to test the shape. Machine it from the same resin to get much closer on strength.

Once the snap works, the rest of the bracket is known work.

Pay to prove it, then quote the rest

For the second list, the fair proposal is to prove the uncertain part first, for an agreed budget, with a check-in partway through. At the check-in you see what has been learned and decide whether to carry on. Once the unknown is proven, the quote for the rest is built on a tested part instead of a hopeful one.

You pay a little up front to take the guesswork out of the big number. Getting the split right is often the difference between a prototype that costs what it should and one that costs far more.

Not every project needs this. If everything sits on the first list, you should get a firm written quote, and a shop that won't give you one is the one to be wary of.

Draw it before you model it

Peter Colpitts, who founded the shop, has a habit worth borrowing: draw it on paper before you jump into CAD, or make a quick version and test the general idea. I've always worked that way too.

The cheapest way to shorten the second list starts before CAD. CAD asks for precision. Every line has a dimension and every surface has to close, which is what makes it powerful and also what makes it slow while you're still working out what you want.

A sketch asks for none of that. You can draw five versions in the time it takes to set up one model, and throw them away without feeling it. When paper isn't enough, make it rough: cardboard, foam, a fast print, scrap material. Does it fit the hand? Does it reach? Does it fold the way you pictured?

By the time you open CAD, you know what you're modelling and why. Some items move off the second list before anyone has cut anything.

If you're about to ask for a quote on something new, make the two lists first and send both with whatever drawing you have. The second list is the one worth talking about.

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