Greeting From The Knocko

[KiltedBill]

Welcome from Denver!

[BEEDEE]

from coastal North Carolina.

Brian

[mang1974]

from St. Louis!

[kilted_brewer]

Troll country, hunh?

Welcome from outside Washington, DC, but inside the beltway!

[Riverkilt]

Welcome,

No doubt the blood of Sir William himself courses through your veins.

Time to upgrade to a hand sewn traditional Wallace tartan kilt in honor of that proud heritage....or whenever you can score the dinero.

Ron

[Knocko]

Welcome,

No doubt the blood of Sir William himself courses through your veins.

Time to upgrade to a hand sewn traditional Wallace tartan kilt in honor of that proud heritage....or whenever you can score the dinero.

Ron

Thank you, Sir.

And, aye, I definitely want a hand-sewn one eventually. But, I'm on such a tight budget that it would be near impossible anytime soon.

I want to replace my whole wardrobe, in fact. I can't stand wearing pants now during the week. Every weekend I break out my kilt and wear it proudly wherever I go and whatever I do.

[cavscout]

Welcome to the neighborhood

[Mr. MacDougall]

Hey, Knocko, welcome to the rabble.

why do kilts have to be so expensive?

I've recently been thinking about that same question. Once upon a time, I used to make cloaks for reinactor types -- the SCA, Rev and Civ war types (I was living in Southern Virginia at the time), and made a decent sideline of it. So I recently started thinking about whether I could offer a less expensive casual kilt than the folks with web shops who advertise here.

Now, I haven't actually made one, yet, but I'm hearing people say it takes ten hours to make a kilt from the X-Marks instructions. At minimum wage (currently $6.25), ten hours of work is $62.50, plus the cost of material... and you come up with the cost of the least expensive casual kilts one sees offered on the aforementioned websites.

When you consider the other costs that a kiltmaker has -- housing costs, machinery costs, advertising and web hosting -- you can see that the costs are the least the kiltmakers can offer reasonably. The only way to get a less expensive kilt would be to get someone to donate the labor, whether it's you, or a mother or wife, or just a friend.

Good luck in your kilted endeavors.

[Knocko]

Thanks for the info, Sir! My girlfriend is quite handy with the sewing (we actually do attend Ren Faires here in Michigan. She's an art vendor.) so we might explore that route during the winter months this next year.

Note to all: I'm loving this board.

[cavscout]

There have been several threads evaluating the cost of kilts. AlanH did a very elaborate analysis (the thread is here somewhere) and found that the profit margin on the kilt makers is virtually minimal.

Before leaping into the business thinking people will knock down your door to buy the cheapest kilt around, do the research and see the quality being produced by FK, USAK, Matt Newsome and Stillwater. Their reputations have been proven over the years based on quality and they are the ones you will be compared to when you start selling.

I'm not saying this to be a road block, just that many have had the same idea but they mis-judged the market and produced an inferior kilt that was quickly dismissed or they were unable to keep up with the demand and kiltwearer's don't handle the "jones" very well . Good luck if you decide to run with it. The guy that figures out how to cut the price and meet demand and still make a great quality kilt will do very well.