Yeah no doubt I was raiding mine and my parents freezer to keep my girl friend in law school from starving to death until her check came... and Obama cut it by $1000 for no reason at all....
I am in agreeance with Big bulls here as normal.... he and I both do the same thing for a living... and we see it all the time.
As to the dude in Gander.... I'm not sticking up for his bad attitude... but he is stressed and overworked... it is no excuse at all to treat someone with contempt or malace.... especially when they spent their money (all of it) with you.
When someone buys all their stuff at the 'Pro Bass' and then carries it to me and complains about having to pay labor... not only are you going to pay full fare.... but I'm going to make fun of you publicly while you are paying me full fare. Dinner and a show..... how bout them apples..... 99% of the folks in this catagory are great sports about it too.... and we usually have a customer for life.
I don't work for free... and I
do not like being acosted by customers about labor charges... and I don't care what they do at the Pro Bass because if their level of work was
anything even close to what mine is... then you wouldn't be in my shop with your Redhead bow now would you?????
My labor charges are fair... competitive... and the same for just about everyone across the board.... if you bought the bow from me.... and even the parts or new string and cable... I'll take it easy on you...and give you a discount on the parts..... but don't buy a bunch of stuff in a box and carry it to me to assemble and complain when I charge you $75 for my time. Rant Off.
Our shop charges $3.50 to strip, clean and refletch arrows with any vane except feathers or quickspins... I think feathers are running about $5.50/arrow now and quickspins are $4.50/arrow.. but we do so few I don't even know. Fletching arrows well is a real art... and while I can do it... our shop's arrow fletcher is my boss' sister in law... who is also a teacher and does some of our office work... she is flat out great at it.... I mean I can make them stick... but you'll see glue runovers and what not.... her's look better than factory... and I mean that....
No charge for cutting and gluing inserts on arrows bought with us... when we sell and arrow... we sell the whole thing.... and we make sure its the right one at the right length... duh.....
If you wanted
new shafts with a custom fletch... we wouldn't do that in house..... its faster and less expensive for us and the customer to order them from our distributor already done that way.... (those $20,000 commercial spray glue hydraulic fletching machines really cut the overhead of labor down to nothing)... quickspins and feathers are a $10 upcharge from the normal price (which is a hell of a deal really).
So basically Tim, in your situation.... the maxmia hunters with Speed hunters would have run your $150 a dozen, plus $10 upcharge and tax (5% in VA).... thats $168 out the door.