Justin Nelson
When Justin Nelson started Fernweh Woodworking in Bend, Ore., in 2014, he was coming off four years in the Marine Corps and then a season on a Forest Service Hotshot crew fighting wildfires. Making tobacco pipes was the only woodworking he had done. “I didn’t know what the business would look like,” he says, “but I liked the idea of independence after government jobs.” He got a quick table-saw lesson from his brother-in law and started out, as he says, “making knick-knacks, learning on YouTube, and blundering through, working 70 hours a week.” A couple of years in, he was introduced to Sam Maloof’s work. “It boggled my mind,” he says. And it convinced him to turn his business toward furniture. He came to love designing and building furniture. These days, as he works with four others in a 2,000-sq.-ft. shop, furniture is his primary product.
