Trust me, builders and contractors are like everyone else, some are good and some are worthless. I can say that because I have been selling product to that industry group for 32 years.

The bill came in at like $1200 more than he expected and I had originally quoted. But my original quote was based on half of the work that ended up being done. Through the process a lot of stuff came up that needed to be done, which resulted in a full metal restoration being done too. I keep him up to speed on all of that, but we never really assigned a dollar figured to the extra work. But he wanted it done “right” and told me “do it as if it was your own gun”. Then he balks at the bill for that. He has either just gave me grief about the bill and told me how much horrible I am for what I am charging him. Or he gives me lines like he will get me paid “next week”. He has been stringing me along since June on it.

In over 12 years I have never dealt with this before. And I have not dealt with having to keep someones gun over an unpaid bill. Believe me, I dont want to keep the gun. I want him to get his gun back and to have him happy with the work. But I am not having that happen at my loss.

However, something tells me that this would be happening regardless of the overage on the bill or not.

Sadly, even if you do resolve it he’s never going to be happy; it’s a lose/lose situation, but I do hope you get paid and he gets his gun back.

Seems there’s a certain type of person who complains after the fact thinking if they complain enough they’ll get a price reduction.

I was told a long time ago by a contractor who was doing work on our house that the cost is not in the materials, it is in the labor. I would image that the labor was intense for a project such as this and the expertise to turn out that kind of work is not cheap. You get what pay for.

Story's like this ,are far too common in this business it's the same up here ...I'm to the point of,if I don't get a good feeling from a potential client I don't continue ...it takes so long to do the work,and people can be incredibly ignorant as to what goes into this kind of project ,haveing your potential paychecks months after you start is very worrisome as well.

In my lanscape business i would get an upfront payment to cover my materials cost and any sub contractors payments. When the client balked at that i was pretty sure they were not intending to pay me. The sure fire indicator was ''money is no object'' that was 100% a stiff.

We have heard many stories on this forum about bad vendors as well as bad customers. Brian is my hero because he is the first one to name the offender, yes, the first time ever. We'll see how this pans out. This customer knew that the end result would not end up with a profit. It reminds me of a Parker VH 12 gauge that was in process for more than 15 years, but ended in a wonderful result. I'm sure the shipping charges were more than my VH is worth, but I'm very happy with it.

Sorry to hear about your problem with the customer.
Hopefully it all works out. I know Doug Turnbull has faced similar issues with customers. I hope you institute a new policy to protect yourself in the future. Sad but as a small business person it's needed in today's world.

This is address a few of Dirty Harrys questions and concerns. For some reason I feel like making sure he is satisfied.

To my knowledge this guy is not a member on this site. Like I said, I want to make sure others know what sort of person he is should anyone have any encounters with him. He made sure to tell me all about guns that he owns and work he has had done over the years. But that was all likey just to try and impress me or something.

I do not have photos of this gun “before”. It was just a barreled action, with no wood. But the metal work had been previously “restored”. Rust blue and case color.

I originally told him the cost to fully restore the gun would be $4-5k

When I saw the gun in person, I saw that the metalwork that had been previously done was not exactly to the best quality. The barrels still had a lot of fine pitting on them that was not polished out and the bluing was dull looking. And the same issue with fine pitting was on the frame under the new case color. But, I said that the finishes were workable and there was no reason to redo them just for the sake of it. They still looked decent.

Well, when I actually got into the work, I found that the tang on the frame had been warped so much that it would never be able to be straightened without risking breaking it. And that the frame would have to be annealed in order to be corrected and then re-hardened. And of course, prepped out right and engraving touched up. That it would be good opportunity to sort out the issues with the less than desirable metalwork. This time out of actual necessity.
I was told to do it right and as if it were my own gun. Well…. I had originally quoted $4-5k for that. And then the bill ends up being right in that range. I am the bad guy and it is the wnd of the world and I am not getting paid.