Your rates seem to be right to me. The hard part is figuring out how much time you will spend on a job. With molds/moldmaking it seems everything takes much longer than it should simply because it has got to look good as well as be to the right dimension. With making replacement parts for a mold (cores, inserts and such) you quote the job just like it were a part for any other job, and then add extra time for polishing. You also have to remember that once a mold it built, most molding companies don't set aside a lot of money for repairs or maintenance on that mold.
Most engineers that I have dealt with believe that if a mold was built right to begin with, that maintenance costs should be minimal. That's why they are willing to spend the big bucks getting a new mold built, but they shop around for repairs / replacement parts.
You can't blame them either, since there is a learning curve with most new molds. Most of the molds I build are unique, and many times I am taking a chance on whether or not the mold will even work. Once the mold is built its just a matter of copying my work to do another one or a replacement part.
Jim Estes
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