Alan Peters, Plumbers and Woodworking Careers
Friends,
Many of you know that I am retired and am an enthusiastic hobbyist woodworker with no interest in starting a career in fine woodworking. However, I am intellectually interested in just how one could get started toward a career in fine woodworking these days. I have participated in threads on this, which generated lots of information, but nothing that could convince me that if I was in my teens or 20s, that there would be much chance that I could make enough money doing fine woodworking. I would want to make enough money to get married, have three kids and live in the upper middle class, be able to put my kids through college and retire at a reasonable age with a reasonable retirement income.
I am guessing that I would need to take at least $100,000/year home from my business, and in order to do that I would need to gross almost twice that. In other words, I would have to pull in about $15,000 a month in order to take home a bit less than $10,000 a month. If you are a professional woodworker, please tell me if my estimates are off.
Last week, I saw a book called “Cabinetmaking: the Professional Approach” by Alan Peters. I looked at the table of contents and he has all sorts of chapters on planning a career in woodworking, on how to set up your first shop, how to plan your way through your first few years, how to get tools, how to get customers, etc etc etc. WOW. This looks great. I bought the book and am now part way through it.
Alan’s ideas on starting off sound quite reasonable. Interestingly enough, his book starts out with some history about the Arts and Crafts movement and some of its early British furniture makers. Well, many of them were architects and didn’t have to worry about money to set up a furniture making business. VERY INTERESTING.
When he talked about starting off your business, he was assuming that you didn’t have other income to cover expenses. He talked about figuring out how much money you need to make, what type of work you want to do, etc.
Reading this book made me even more skeptical about the chances of making enough money as a furniture maker to have an “upper middle class” life. Stop to think, if I need to take in $15,000 a month, I need to turn out seven $2,000 pieces or so every month. That means about one of these every three working days. EEEEEEHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAA.
Obviously there are a number of fine woodworkers who are making far more than this. But it sounds intimidating.
Maybe one should figure on getting married late and only having one kid, and striving only to become part of the middle class. BUT THAT DOESN”T SOUND RIGHT. Would it be fulfilling to make furniture for people into whose league you could not hope to enter.
THEN MY TOILET BROKE. I called the plumber. It took him less than four minutes to fix it and he said: “$220.” I gulped, and said “Sure”. What was the alternative? (( By the way, this is a true story,.”))
This gave me the idea on how to make furniture which meets my standards, and to do it for a lifetime.. One must become a plumber and work as a plumber for 20 hours a week. The rest of the week could be devoted to making whatever furniture you want to make, and not worry about having to sell it.
The last paragraph was only half in jest. A combination of careers in plumbing and fine woodwork has a ring of fun and it also sounds possible.
Any thoughts by people with experience in making a living making fine furniture?
Thanks,
Mel
PS I used $100,000/yr in the context of living in Northern Virginia, which is much different than living in lower-cost areas of the US. If had been using Tallahassee, FL, for example, I would have estimated a need for much less income. Median family income in Fairfax, VA is $107,000.
Replies
I am a furniture maker full time and make a tenth of what you say is "needed". Yet my wife, two daughters, and I have our needs met every month. It boils down to are you working to buy things that will be gone in a hundred years or are you building things that will last forever ( I am not talking about furniture).
Dan,
I was only talking about making the average income of the community one lives in. I ton't think that is asking a lot.
I talked about living in an area with a much lower average income level than I current live in.
Please do not think that I was knocking anyone who is willing to build fine furniture while earning less than the community average. It is just not what I would want. I wish you good luck and a good life. I wish you a satisfying career. I wish the best for your family.
The questions I proposed were for purposes of discussion and gathering information. My career is over. But there are folks like Chris Wong, who are just starting out. What should they expect? Your response helped provide information on that. I hope we hear from a number of professionals.
Mel
""Measure your output in
""Measure your output in smiles per board foot. "" your measuring it in $'s
not to be facetious, but I have to ask is; how do you spell happiness, is this how you do it or is this percieved,"" I would want to make enough money to get married, have three kids and live in the upper middle class, be able to put my kids through college and retire at a reasonable age with a reasonable retirement income. "" there are lots of people in this world that don't have that and they are happy.. were you happy with what you did at work everyday, were you happy to go to work, or were you counting the days to retirement?
life takes us in many different directions. money isn't everything in this world, but it would be nice to have some. I have been working now for 51 years and I am still happy to be doing what I do and always look forward to tomorrow to do it again
very few of the guys that are making the big dollars are working by themselves. there are some
ron
Ron,
You make good points. We all have to make choices. We make different choices. I would not criticize your choices.
I am trying to explore to see what is possible. So far, there are two responses and they are similar. But there are other alternatives. As you point out, there are a woodworkers who make much more.
If a person was looking to start a career in making one of a kind pieces of fine furniture, what can they expect? Do they have to eschew a middle class life style in order to follow their passion for woodworking?
I spent a few days last year with David Savage and learned of a few dozen furniture makers in England and Ireland who are TOP NOTCH, and they are doing quite well. I liked what he had to say. It would be nice if prospective woodworkers could learn about them as well as those who are willing to earn much less.
Some top notch woodworkers here in the US have left furniture making to get into writing about furniture making, or into teaching. Some of these are doing quite well.
It is not BAD to earn a good living doing what you love. We all make sacrafices. It is interesting and useful to look at all sides of this.
I wish you the best! I Hope you achieve your goals for yourself and your family!
Mel
this a actually a very complex question which could take a lot of dialoque. there are many directions in which to go
there are a lot that want to be woodworkers and most won't get past being mediocre. i think the main ingrdient is the heart to do it(desire accomplish, the desire to always keep learning and to strive after excellence on every piece
ron
I hope you are just stirring things up out of boredom
Mel:
I realize that you type away on KNOTS forum with various comments that are intended to kick off fights and debates with which to fill the hours. YOu yourself once said that you never learned much here but liked the clash of wits. I hope this is such an occasion.
Just for the record, I have a pretty nice income most of the time, so I am not reacting defensively.
That said, I cannot imagine how anyone could really believe what you wrote in your original post. $15,000 per month, or $180,000 per year is more than most people in the world, even the USA will ever earn on a regular basis. According to the Census Bureau only +- $9.5 million families earned over $150,000 in 2008. That is a about 8% of the over 117 million families in the country. The median family income -- than which there are an equal number above and below, was in the neighborhood of $50k.
And yet a huge percentage of most of the people in the country and the world manage to live satisfying and generally happy lives, despite the constant struggles of this vale of tears. Most young aspiring craftsmen would think it absurd to expect such an income. And yet, they feed their families, keep their housesin paint, their cars in repair, fund college educations, and participate in many essnetial or pleasurable activities of life.
Really, Mel, think before you blather. This is quite tiresome. Wake up and look at the lovely world out there.
well said. I do believe that he looks down his nose at most people on this board. i did questoin him the other day about a stupid statement of cleaning badsaw tires with sulphuric acid, which I responded to and to which he seemed to get quite upset about. then he commented, "You know, Ron, you sound dangerous to me. :-)"
the his final comment is usually , it is all in jest
ron
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Hi Joe,
My original post was aimed at trying to find out if a "fine wodworker" had much of a chance of making it into the upper middle class. By the way, I don't make enough to be considered upper middle class. There are a number of professional woodworkers who are way above the incomes I was talking about.
I do see from some of the responses that some woodworkers took my question a bit defensively, as you did, although you said you didn't. I had been reading Alan Peters book, Which I highly recommend, and the woodworkers that he admired and learned from, were fairly wealthy. They got their money from their original profession. They were architects. They didn't have to depend on making money from making furniture. Then my toilet broke, just as I said. The plumber came and fixed the toilet for $220 in less than five minutes, and I had him do two other things. Total time was less than fifteen minutes and the bill was $420. Wow. Why not be a plumber half time, and use that income to make whatever kind of furniture that you like, and not worry about making money at it? In a way, that is what I have done. I had a career, and now I have a pension, and I do woodwork, all day, every day (except when the grandchildren are around).
I believe that the issue I raised is a good and valid one which was raised in the book by Alan Peters. I didn't think of that as
"stirring up trouble". Not at all.
In my response to Ray Pine, I gave the names of lots of woodworkers who make a good deal of money. I don't consider it bad for a woodworker to make money. Indeed, I was hoping that some woodworkers might think more deeply about the possibilities and learn from those who do. I got some very good and deep, intellectually honest responses on this one.
I did learn a lot. The biggest thing I learned was the most surprising. Some woodworkers got very defensive about my question, and talked about the virtues of working for very little money because they love the work. I suppose that if they are REALLY AND TRUELY happy that way, that is fine. But since there are enough woodworkers who are making much more, why not look at what they do, and see what the possibilities are.
Maybe some folks just don't want to be comfortable. I really would like to be a member of rhe Upper Middle Class. Who knows, maybe someday I'll hit the lottery.
I do enjoy stirring thought. I don't stir trouble. There is a real difference.
Have fun, and thanks for writing.
Mel
Hmmm, well...
Mel:
As a reformed shrink of some sort, you surely must understand the difference between reacting defensively, and finding something offensive.
J
Sid,
Money and hapiness; beyond a certain amount of greenback, they seem to become mutually exclusive.
There is Mel with his middle-class thang and what sounds like a silly amount of money to me, not to mention shallow life ambitions. But then I am Northern British and used to a lifestyle far less opulent yet full of interest. In this environment happiness (whatever that is) traditionally comes from the challenges of life rather than consumer goods. Not to reject the pleasures of a new tool or a fine lunch at the pub, mind.
When looking about me in this large village wherein I abide, it becomes obvious quite quickly that those with high monetary ambitions and desires (shall we call them the petit booge-wah, their proper name) are far-and-away the most unhappy. (There are exceptions). They strive and compete with each other on the income / shiney-consumables / mysterious status-indicator battlefields. Always they need a new car and another holiday in DIsneyland. The glance of envy and smirk of shaudenfraude are their usual expressions.
Then there are what used to be called the working class (blue collar in the US). These folk are often volatile, emotional and rather at home with their lot. They are full of prejudice and wisdom. When one needs practical help and advice, a true friend or a lesson in sociability, guess where it always comes from. :-)
*****
I was a British civil servant for most of my working life. It was a sea of unhappy strivers in the stakes for meaningless status and the "comforts" of the middle class (which paradoxically always seemed to make them very unconfortable). I counted myself lucky to be without ambitions (of the civil service type) yet able to do meaningful work whilst obtaining pleasures from even more meaningful play, including amateur woodworking. I was poor as the proverbial churchmouse until I was 50, yet happy as a lark. And here I am now with a fine pension (fine enough to live on at least) and freedom to play even more.
*****
Those who would make woodworking their source of income are lucky to be able to combine their real life with their work life - an integrated and wholesome mode of living. They are unlucky that our current socio-economic regime values twaddle-peddling via consultants, bankers and other parasites more than real-world activity and products.
If our professional woodworkers are able to stomach market-hype, celebrity kulture and similar, they may beat a path similar to that of the Mel-exemplar, David Savage. Others will want to remain real and make serviceable, beautiful and affordable furniture for people who appreciate it as such, rather than sculpti-objects reeking of "personality", an inflated pricetag and a label stating "For Rich Strivers and Status-Seekers Only". If they are very lucky they will be able to make what they wish and obtain enogh to live well.
Which just goes to show that you are right to intimate that income is but a small factor in deciding what to do with one's life - unless the mind-warps of petit booge-wah have stripped-out one's soul and replaced it with an accountant.
Lataxe, always a peasant.
Ball-park economics
Mel, your figures are reasonable but as you said, it depends an awful lot on where you are living and working. A few thoughts on what you were asking -
1. The $15,000 monthly income you are talking about is possible but it takes a long time to get there. In the meantime one needs either a spouse with a regular salary or a nest egg to draw on.
2. It's much harder to sell and produce 7 pieces of $2000 than it is to do one piece of $15,000 in the same time frame. This is why many shops, including my own, gradually turn to making kitchens or large commission work.
regards,
David,
You are an intelligent, insightful and a reasonable man. YOur point about it being easier to make one $15K sale than seven $2000 sales is right on.
The idea of living a life of poverty in order to follow one's passions is kinda romantic. My choice would be to follow one's passions while being relatively comfortable.
My brother started off making furniture, and ended up building houses. He was my introduction fo woodwork. By the time I started with my hobby of woodworking, I was beginning my career as a Human Factors Psychologist. It was a very good career which ended with a 30+ year stint at NASA which was quite exciting. For more than a decade, I ran the NASA technology program in space robotics and systems autonomy. After that, I managed the entire technology development program for NASA. My third "career" at NASA was in the development of Astrophysics projects, where I was the Headquarters Program Manager for the development of a number of satellites, which are now "up there" gathering images and data. During this time, my wife and I had three children who are now happy, productive citizens, with families of their own. One is a computer scientist. One is a bridge designer, and one is a roboticist.
All the while, my hobby was woodwork. I made furniture and carvings. I rebuilt and reproduced antiques. I still do, only now, I am retired and can do it full time. I started woodworking during the last year of my PhD program. I was lucky enough to get a great education, and then used that education to enable a career that I enjoyed thoroughly, and that gave me the wherewithall to live comfortably and give my kids a great start, AND to enable me to have a lot of fun learning and doing fine woodwork.
Alan Peter's book described a number of folks who used other spirces of income to foster their woodwork. That got me thinking about "woodworking careers". I was lucky enough to spend three days with David Savage of Great Britain last year and learned about how he got into a highly successful and lucrative woodworking career, and he showed me many others who have done likewise. I see folks like Richard Jones here on Knots who is not only a successful woodworker but an educator. I see Ray Pine and Rob Millard. There is no doubt that a successful career in woodwork is possible which more than pays the bills. BUT from what I have seen here on Knots, there are many woodworkers who seem very happy, or at least they say they are, making very little money. We have also seen many woodworkers turn to teaching and writing about woodworking. Nothing wrong with that, but it does provide some insights to those comtemplating going into woodwork.
Here on Knots, we have watched Kaleo grow from a student of fine woodworking to a man with his own shop and a nice website. Now we see Chris Wong, who is talented and prolific, and also works for Lee Valley. Knots is a great place to be a part of all of this. But somehow, there is not much written info about what one can expect in terms of making a life for oneself and one's family.
THis is, to me, a very interesting issue. Alan Peter's book provides the best insights on it that I have come across.
Thanks for writing.
Mel
Mel's business model
Mel,
Your musings about furniture building as a business are quite intuitive and I would agree with many of your postulations (not sure if that's a real word).
Anyway, I've been there and done that. Although not a furniture shop, I did start a cabinet shop in my early twenties. It was a successful venture for twenty years and provided well for me and my family. My first year I think I grossed about $60k and the last year before I sold out we were up to about $750k (twenty years ago mind you).
Success came easy as a young man. I am currently trying to launch a new carer for myself as a furniture maker. It's not exactly going gangbusters. Maybe it's because I'm not as hungry although I feel fairly ambitious. Maybe people think I'm too old, only 57. I think it's just harder now I think although I am in a smaller community now and started out in a big urban area.
Fortunately, I don't really need the money and I have a day job, remodeling and installing cabinets. I make fairly decent money, It's just not what I want to do. I'm going to keep trying the furniture thing. Eventually I will succeed.
Bret
Bret,
YOu have had a great career in woodworking and are using the proceeds of that career to start a second. Congratulations and continued good luck. You provide a great role model for those interested in a starting a woodworking career. You also provide an excellent and real-world counterpoint to those who say you to be a woodworker, you have to settle for very low wages.
I would like to get to know you better. Do you have a website for your new venture?
We need more people like you here in Knots.
Thanks for posting your experienced-based wisdom on this interesting issue.
Mel
Mel
This is a very interesting subject you have raised, covered in various guises in this forum. It always raises new ideas and perceptions.
A lot depends on wether people consider your work to be 'art'. If it's art you seem to be able to add quite a few more zeros to your price tag. Until you aquire that status, people don't seem to appreciate the amount of labour you have put in to produce a quality item.
The old fallback of suplementing your quality furniture with white boxes for kitchens is now challenged by most every one being able to go to their local flatpack reseller and geting an 'acceptable' kitchen for the price of a well constructed and finished piece of furniture. Thanks China.
Technology is eating into the domain of carvers and sculptors. For a very reasonable outlay in technology you can produce incredible 3,4 and 5D work. CNC has almost made carvers redundant.
I fear that quality cabinet work is going to be, on the whole, dominated by keen hobyists and retirees, and not a career path for youngsters.
Plumbers, bakers and gravediggers will alwaqys have a job.
wot
Wot,
I believe you have hit every nail directly on the head. Your comments on China's effect are spot on. Your ideas about career paths are quite realistic. I fear some bubbles shall be burst, but the truth shall out.
Your ideas on furniture which is called "art" are identical with mine. Actually, this is the area of my interest in woodworking - one of a kind pieces, some of which I try to be creative on, and some of which are copies of nice old pieces. Luckily, I don't try to sell any of it. My wife and the kids take it all. I do enjoy making it. I don't believe I could have made a living making it, but that may be due to how slow I am. If I went into the business, I would have to learn to become efficient with my time.
Unfortunately, trying to become efficient with my time in making a piece of furniture would diminish my pleasure in making the piece. This is a double edged sword.
Thanks for writing.
Mel
Mel,
One thing that should be made clear is that the business end of the equation is just as important as doing the work. Marketing and pricing as well as the ability to get the client to sign on the dotted line need to be addressed.
Efficiency, no matter how you price your work it still comes down to time spent in the shop.
It is relatively easy to acquire the skills to make furniture but some may not have the ability to design.
I have been a full time maker for over thirty years and have treated it more as a life style than a business.
Now I look around and see my friends retiring with pensions while I still pull out the credit card.
Now don't get me wrong, I have and hope to continue having a very satisfying life making things. I've built and paid for a house/shop on an acreage. Aside from a couple of bad habits I live a fairly frugal life. I don't travel much, I live in jeans and a Tshirt, I love to cook so I don't eat out.
But, I highly recommend anyone starting out considers the venture first as a business.
"Making a living" doing one of a kind pieces with my population base is difficult. I also do custom spray finishing, teach, write and recently started doing product photography.
My most financially successful period was when I had an employee and did two or three kitchens a year.
I would suggest that to achieve "financial success" it takes a good business man and a two or three person shop that offers services ranging from case work to one of a kind pieces.
Not quite the nirvana that some envision :)
Cheers, Don
Don,
You said "One thing
Don,
You said "One thing that should be made clear is that the business end of the equation is just as important as doing the work. Marketing and pricing as well as the ability to get the client to sign on the dotted line need to be addressed. "
I fully agree. I was talking about making a living as a furniture designer/maker, and you can't do that if you have no business sense. I believe you and I are in full agreement on all points.
I like your summation: Not quite the nirvana that some envision :)
You are the guy with the real experience. I am merely trying to think the issue through, and understand what can be expected. I believe the woodworker/businessmen who answered this thread have put together valuable information for folks who are thinking of entering the business
Thank you for writing.
Mel
Don, you are an artist
I looked at your photos. You are an artist as well as a fine craftsman.
In reading your comments it occurs to me that we all make choices. It appears you have chosen to produce a product that is too finely crafted to farm out to an apprentice or even a journeyman for that matter which limits your output by how many hours you can work.
For most of my professional woodworking career I have designed products and then designed methods and procedures by which semi-skilled workers can produce the product. In my case the product was mainly well designed and constructed cabinets and mill work for high end homes. Nice stuff but not of the same calibre as your work. My most lucrative times were when I was doing all the sales and designing myself but my output was limited by how much I could sell and design. Then I hired a salesman/designer and also a production manager and that's when things started not working so well. It was no longer "me". I sold the cabinet shop at that point and went into home building.
Now my career has come full circle and now I aspire to be like you, building finely crafted one-off custom pieces and hopefully make a little change in the process.
Bret
I can't imagine having a client who'd be able to spend 15K on one pice of furniture. I'm not that far from No. Va, and those clients aren't here.. they USED to be here before the bottom fell out, now eveyones' counting pennies. the last of the local lumberyards closed last month, leaving only Lowes' and Home Depot. that's the biz that survives, the ones that cater to the frugal. I know of 3 cabinet shops that are no longer in biz, because they couldn't compere price wise.. forget quality,that costs too much. the only shop that reopenned in the area, has gone to CNC machines, where they don't need but a couple workers, and they needed outside investors to re-open, so in essence, they'rte working with someone else's $$. time will tell if they survive. when you have new homes being occupied by buyers who can't afford curtains, high dollar furniture regardless of quality, is a pipe dream... and you'd be amazed at how many homes here fit that category.
Butch,
"I can't imagine
Butch,
"I can't imagine having a client who'd be able to spend 15K on one pice of furniture. I'm not that far from No. Va, and those clients aren't here.. they USED to be here before the bottom fell out, now eveyones' counting pennies."
Really,
In the Washington DC area, we have a Professional Basketball team, a professional Football team and a professional Hockey team and a professional baseball team. I believe that most of these guys are making multimillions of dollars a year, after not having much as they grew up. Have you seen their cars and homes? Do you think they are counting pennies? Do you think the basketball players and football players can go into the local department store and buy clothes that fit them or furniture that fits them? I know of one nearby chairmaker who got a nice commission for a LARGE rocking chair from one of these guys. THis is a group of people with BIG BUCKS who might be very happy to be approached by a classy furniture maker that is willing to make furniture that fits them.
Washington DC is the most recession proof city in the US. There are lots of VERY RICH folks who have mansions a? nd lifestyles to keep up. Drive along Mass. Ave and tell me whatt you see. Normal furniture wouldn't look good in these places.
Then there are the .folks who are lobbyists. They have to LOOK GOOD and PRESENT A GREAT IMAGE. Have you seen their offices. They are not hard to find.
Have you seen the villages of Great Falls, VA and McLean, VA? LOOK. Not everybody is losing their houses. Go to Google, and google the richest cities in your state. Then begin to look around.
Have you ever been to the Waterford Arts and Crafts show, near Leesburg, VA? Look it up in Google. Every year, they have a well attended arts and crafts sale. Some of the cheapest pieces of furniture are around a grand. One of the desks was about 30 grand. Thousand dollar chairs were everywhere. Do they sell? I go every year to see the good stuff. Sales looked good to me. The area around Waterford, VA SMELLS LIKE MONEY. I cannot describe the size of the houses and the "mini farms".
Have you heard of Middleburg, VA - where the ultra rich have their horse farms?
I am going to stop now. It is just too easy to point out very rich communities, and to show how to find groups of folks with the wherewithall to buy great and expensive furniture.
I hope some of this is of use to you. You talked of businesses doing badly now. Have you been listening to the news about the ones that are doing very well.
I believe that for a creative go-getter with good woodworking skills and good sales skills, there are folks waiting to be served. If I were starting a furniture business now, I would approach one of the best Pro basketball and Football agent firms, and suggest an arrangement that would be mutually beneficial (and very above board). I wouldn't sit back and complain about the economic hard times. That is better off being done in the Cafe. :-)
Sorry about being so positive.
Have fun. Good luck..
Mel
obviously you have worked where the taps don't really shut off. whether or not you didn't get something accomplished in a day or not you still got paid.
having lots of money doesn't nec mean that one has taste. all of those rich superstars are young and they want it now, they don't want to wait for someone to make them something; they'll more than likely be traded before then... those bifg fancy house and flashy cars are sitting there for sale most of the time
You say that you are upper middle class. how many people do you really know that go out and commision furniture, and you live in that area
the market for "good" fine furniture is about 1/4 of 1% of the population. the one thing that customers usually have other than money, is that they have a knowledge of what they are looking for genrally
there are a lot of people live back there, more than likely the highest density in the us. say a 5 hour drive in any direction. Most of the more well known furniture makers either live or sell in that area
ron
Ron,
You made some very interesting points.
"having lots of money doesn't nec mean that one has taste." Absolutely, but that is no reason not to help them acquire taste. If you have it, share it. Isn't that the job of the fine woodworker?
The Upper Middle Class doesnt buy high end furniture. They like to have a nice kitchen with granite countertops and nice appliances, etc. They might pay $50 grand for a kitchen, but they would rarely commission a piece of fine furniture. You hit the nail on the head when you said "the market for "good" fine furniture is about 1/4 of 1% of the population." RIGHT ON!
Alan Peters has a section in his book on finding clients, especially when you are starting out. That isn't an easy job.
Over in Great Britain, David Savage teaches his students not only how to make furniture, but how to design furniture and how to advertise and how to find suitable clients. According to Richard Jones, he has been successfully turning out successful woodworkers for a long time. Apparently he has the knack. I wish I had it.
Have fun.
Mel
.
just how do you teach someone taste. I believe that taste is an acquired asset. It is like being a scotch drinker, one must acquire a taste for it. for some no matter how much money that they have, their only taste is in their mouth
I am going to rephrase this statement to. the "good" fine furniture market has the potential of 1/4 of 1% of the population that has the money and the intelligence to appreciate it
I have been doing this for 35 years and I do where my market lies. I also make everything for myself and if someone else likes it and buys it that is an added plus. not an easy life.
you and I may have chosen different career paths, had different educations, but that doesn't make you any smarter
you mention david savage and richard jones; why are they teaching? They can make better money and less stress doing it. there is a better market for students than making furniture for a living and they don't have to go that high up the social ladder for their customers. it is an idividual thing.
here is an excerpt from an introduction to a study of the 'status of the artist in canada". written in the early 80's and still holds firm today
you will hear people say that poverty is the best spur to the artist. They have never felt the iron of ot in their flesh..They do not know how mean it makes you. It exposes you to endless humiliation, it cuts your wings, it eats into your soul like a cancer. It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and independent
-from " Of Human Bondage" by W. Somerset Maugham
Ron ,
You have been doing this for a long time. You know what you are talking about.
I respect what you have accomplished.
Enjoy,
Mel
Mel..I'm very familiar with ALL those areas you speak of...I live REAL close to several,in fact... but they are the FEW..the VERY few out of the million or so w/i 100 sq mi. there are those "rich" that you speak of, but they are GREATLY outnumbered by those more like my family, who owns land and homes, but don't profess to be rich, or those who are losing their homes at alarming rates. have you been outside those Rich areas, my friend? sounds as tho you haven't, or you're fail to recognize what the MAJORITY of people have to deal with... making payments, feeding families,etc... as for your "good" businesses, most have Gov't affiliations, and that's not a good thing. they survive off TAXPAYER money, and that's soon gonna take a hit. so, if you're attempting to impress me, or move me to cater to those you speak of, forget it. I'd rather make low dollar furniture for those that NEED it, than to sell to some overpaid Pro, just to increase MY bank account. if one tries to start a biz with the intentions of catering to the wealthy..they'll go broke..I've seen 1st hand what that 'Big City" influence does to a neighborhood..and it's NOT what I call "opportunity... YMMV
look good and present a Great image, huh..... I call that vanity...and one I personally abore.
Butch,
It's an old problem. The poor and middle class cannot afford the finest hand made furniture. That's life.
We have different views. I respect your views.
I do wish you the best.
Mel
Another 1200 or so posts and we could have a sequel to Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged ;-))
Pete,
Or maybe the Fountainhead.
Mel
PS With this new Knots format, it would be impossible to navigate 1200 posts. We may be getting close to the limit with this one. :-)
..and I yours,Mel.... did I mention that my sister lives in Markham,Va, off I-66 ? yep, in aConfederate civil war generals' stone mansion( or so she calls it....) but it's nice.
Butch,
Sounds like your sister has a nice place. It would be fun to have a house with some history.
Have fun.
Mel
A Plumber's Life for Me
Plumbing might be the way to go. After all, there are only 3 things you need to know: Poop won't run uphill, payday's Friday and don't chew your fingernails...
(Spoken in jest as an ex elecrtrician with many old plumber friends.)
my dad had a variation on that
My dad's version on that was "Hot is on the left. Cold is on the right and Sh%% won't run up hill! "
Apples To Apples
Mel, you're not comparing apples to apples, and you've reversed cause and effect.
Your fifteen grand a month needs didn't come from nowhere-- you need fifteen grand a month because your lifestyle led you there.
And your lifestyle was created by your income.
Your income was generated by your career, and it took you however many decades to get to that level.
If you're going to compare a woodworking income from the start, don't compare it to your income after forty years, compare it to the income you made on your first job right out of college. You didn't need fifteen grand a month during your first month after college, because you didn't make fifteen grand a month. You made something less, and somehow, you survived.
If you want to compare something to your income right before you retired from a successful career, then look at incomes of woodworkers who have forty years in. Michael Fortune sells chairs for four grand, in sets of four and six.
If you're not willing to put the decades in, you won't make the big money in woodworking.
Just like your career was. Did you do an internship? Did you take that first job for next to nothing, just to get your foot in the door?
That's the job you should be comparing to a starting woodworker who, in your words, is in his (or her) teens or twenties.
Get the coffee. Everybody does it, one way or another.
Jammer,
I really didn't have a cause and effect to reverse. I raised an issue about which I have little background. I was wondering about the chances of getting into the upper middle class if one becomes a woodworker. I didn't come up with $15 grand a month because of what I made. I came up with it by looking at the statistics for the area in which I live. My question wasn't about me. I have had my career. I was raising an issue about the woodworkers of tomorrow.
I still get the coffee, even after retiring. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Enjoy. Thanks for writing.
Mel
All,
I tried twice last nite to post a reply to this thread. The first time I got booted offline by my dialup connection, and my post went off into nowhere. The second try, my computer took a dump, and the post just plain pissadeered.
After that big build up, here's what I have to say.
A career in the crafts, like woodworking, is akin, in my mind to a career in the entertainment field.
Take music. There are many, many people who play music simply for their own pleasure. There are many people who play for their friends, and family. There are a lot of musicians who play for pay, part time, at parties and local restaurants. There are some musicians who make a modest living at making music, traveling around and playing at nite clubs, bars and bistros. Some of these achieve a following of fans, and have thousands of songs downloaded off the internet. A few of these go on to be opening acts for star performers. And a few, very few become stars themselves, making music before thousands of people at sold out concerts..
What does it take to become a star? and what keeps a talented performer in the second tier, playing for fifty or a hundred folks, but never making the leap to lollapalloosa or carnegie hall? Well, as the tourist in NYC asked, how do you get to carnegie hall? PRACTICE! that one's for you, Mel
But, so it is, seems to me, with woodworkers, potters, basketweavers, gunsmiths. It takes a special combination of dedication, talent, and shameless self promotion, to achieve success, and popular acclaim. Not that they are the same.
Some of the more successful professional woodworkers I've met have been better businessmen than craftsmen. Their work might be described as ...not inspired, but it is competently made, fills a demand, and they have figured out a way to sell it-make it seem more desireable to their customers than their competitors. Contrariwise, some of the most talented craftspeople I've met, don't take much time to promote their talents, instead devoting their energies toward expanding and deepening their skill-set, and are known only to a local group of customers.
Check out a craftswoman named Lally House:
http://www.kentuckylongrifles.com/html/lally_house.html
Many of the members of the CLA (contemporary longrifle makers association) are extremely talented. Knowledge and appreciation of their skills is limited to a select group, not because they are so exclusive, but as has been said, the majority of people have no appreciation for such things. They are watching dancing with the stars or Lost. Their taste is all in their mouths.
This isn't meant to be sour grapes, it just is the way it is. If everyone wanted custom designed, handmade furniture, then THAT would be the norm, and schlock and dreck would be special.
Ray,
So a professional woodworker is like a musician. I'll buy that. But there are a lot of different schools of music. I think of you and Richard Jones and Rob Millard. Some similarities, Some big differences. Two of you are one man shops, and the other has a "team", and is into education. There are folks like Patrick Edwards out in CA with his fantastic approach to marquetry. There is the Oxford trained painter named David Savage who now does high-end artful furniture and runs a school. There is the guy in Fredericksburg who makes a Maloof rocker a week. There are the small art-furniture shops in England and Ireland that do phenomenal work, that I was made aware of by David Savage.
There are people who call themselves professional woodworkers who put together kitchens and other home cabinetry built ins.
There are the folks like Glen Huey who was a great furniture maker, who made the jump to publishing. There is David Charlesworth, and there is Chris Schwartz. Interestingly enough, David Savage told me that he does not consider anyone a woodworker who does not make furniture for a living, so Charlesworth, Huey and Schwartz don't belong to the club.
Then there is the guy who probably makes the most money in the US related to woodwork. That would be Marc Adams. He runs a big school and teaches courses. I guess that according to David's definition, Marc is not a woodworker. He is a headmaster.
There is the guy who got me started making bowls out of tree stumps - that guy who looks like Santa Claus - Rip Mann. How about Drew Langsner? What about all of the Bowl Turners? They guys who hang around a lathe all day. The guys who make Windsor Chairs - there are some good ones.
What about the guys in the Black Forest who make CooCoo clocks? Well, maybe they don't count.
What about a guy who designs a chair that sells three million copies? (He works for IKEA.)
What about Larry Williams, who makes stuff from wood, and has folks lined up for months or years to get his wood planes.
I am amazed by the variety of professional woodworkers, and the variety of their stories.
Every one of them knows the way to Carnegie Hall.
I loved your analogy to musicians. Thanks for joining in. Sorry that God destroyed two of your messages.
Mel
I have been building cabinets & furniture as a sideline for 35 years while working full time as an Electronic Technologist & in the earlier years considered woodworking full time. Looking back now, I know I would never have acheived the same financial success - house mortgage paid in 15 yrs., 2 kids raised & educated (son is a pharmacist who owns his own pharmacy, daughter is a housewares buyer for a large building supply chain), a year-round cottage (& another fully equipped shop) mortgage-free, where we spend 6 months of the year, retired at 56 (5 years ago). Still building when the opportunity arises - I take only jobs where I can make a decent profit, that I will enjoy doing, & for sincere customers who don't pi$$ me off during initial contacts. I accept cash only, 50% down, balance before pick-up or delivery. Having a secure full-time job (which I enjoyed for 34 years) allowed me to develop such an independent attitude & it has worked very well for me. I cannot imagine a talented young craftsman starting his own business & even approaching "middle class" staus regardless of the great personal gratification. The "love of the craft" generally, doesn't pay mortgages, educate kids & build a retirement fund. One of my old B&W issues of FWW had an article where they interviewed several shops (25 yrs. ago). Surviving one-man shops were usually supported by a spouse with a good job. Very few achieve Becksvort, Hack, Krenov, Nackashima status. Information gleaned from the Business sections of several woodworking discussion forums would be invaluable to anyone considering such a move.
here is one of the greatest causes why it is so difficult to make a living woodworking and there are tons of guys doing it. most of them are or were good union men. these are the guys that have full time jobs that are also trying to pump out furniture or whatever from their basements or garages. they don't contribute to anything other than themselves.
. to me they are just like illegal immigrants coming into the country
ron
"trying to pump out
"trying to pump out furniture"? Not trying - doing it for over 30 years. Must be doing something right? I certainly don't try & undercut any commercial enterprises, my prices in most cases are higher! Also, you have no idea whether us "illegal immigrants" are "contributing to anything" or not! Relax, have another coffe - I have finished my coffee break & have an Oak TV cabinet to finish. Gotta get 'er done so I can hang around the neighbourhood & snag some of those rich customers on their way to a real furniture maker/craftsman with the ar$e out of his pants. Have a nice day.
i bet that you paid taxes on all that extra money over the years ,. had a business lic and other things that go along with running a business
and if anyone had ever infringed upon your daytime job you would have your union towel out there crying
ron
Piker,
You have everything that Ray Pine said was necessary for success: knowledge and love of woodwork, knowledge of business, and a knowledge of how to sell yourself. To me, you are a Role Model for future woodworkers to emulate. And you have proven that it works, by doing well. Nothing wrong with doing well by doing good.
THanks for writing.
Mel
Mel, it's different when you have a full time job allowing you to build and supply a complete workshop, than it is trying to do that w/o that full time job that is NOT woodworking.... personal drive is not the point as far as I'm concerned...it's a matter of paying for your shop while working in it, as compared to making enough somewhere else to do it. HUGE difference, wouldn't you say??? sorta like thsoe fellows that worked at the local GM plant, who after work did construction work on the side. the made enough $$ at GM to support their families, plus enough to buy the tools necessary to do construction. it's a tad harder if you don't have that "guaranteed" income. I don't begrudge anyone working for what they have... it's supposed to be that way...but let's not compare apples with oranges in the business world.. the subject was making a living SOLEY thru woodworking, wasn't it????
I see a few things here that need reiterating...
1- you had a full time job that was in the top 15% of salaries,I'd say( which is perfectly ok)...you made enough from THAT position to support yourself,which is admirable.
2- you clearly stated that you could NOT have been so financially successful had you been a full time WW'er... again, that's ok, you told the truth as you experienced it. and I'd wager that todays' economy is WORSE than it was then, so it would even be tougher today.
3- I have no idea who those people were you referred to... not a clue,but I must admit, I'm hard to impress, even by those who are 'famous designers". what they did is irrelevant in my life....like you ,I'm independently spirited and make no apologies.
I applaud anyone who does what he enjoys doing, even if he only makes nick-knacks for flea markets...but I will say, that I'm TOTALLY impressed by those that reach out to others to TEACH the trade to others, without monetary gain. very few have accomplished that status,even on this forum.
I will say that I would have been more impressed with what you've stated, had I read that you and your kids had served their country, sacrificing alot for the sake of others... but I didn't read that.....because you see, there are 2 types of people in the world today...those who give and those who take.
that is all....
What's your point?
What's your point anyway? Your "reiterating" items 1 & 2 are exactly what I posted in my first response, why repeat them? Item 3 - the fact that you don't recognize some of the eminent cabinet/furniture makers in the US doesn't have dick all to do with me, my responses or Mel's original query.
As to the last paragraph in your rant - what does my family's military service, or lack of, have to do with with mine or anybody else's response to the query originally posted by Mel?
Off your meds or what? You seem to be taking off on a tangent. If you want to hack on me, at least stick close to the subject like Ron has.
1- I am legitimate and have been for 35 years
2- all that you have to do is click on my name and see a basic bio. What do you have -nothing
3- 1 o 2 would never hurt but you get enough of them it does effect business. Mind you in 35 years of being in business I have never been without work. I haven't had any employees since 1980 and have been entirely my myself.. you just look around and see how many woodworkers have survived in a commercial situation for that long
ron
Butch,
You said "the
Butch,
You said "the subject was making a living SOLEY thru woodworking, wasn't it????"
Actually, that was not the subject at all. Just the opposite. As i said in my original post, I was reading a book by Alan Peters, in which he talked about a series of guys who set up woodworking shops, and became successful, but they didn't need to make money through woodworking, because they had already made money as architects!!!!! That is why I brought up the plumber example of looking for other employment to make enough money to do woodworking without worrying about the need to make money from it. I was hoping that others would read the Alan Peters book. It is very thought provoking, and offers insights as to how some of the big name woodworkers in the past got their start (at least in England).
Anyway, it has been lots of fun and very interesting. We have gotten information from all different types of woodworkers, and the responses have been eye-opening. Like you, not everyone answered the issue I raised about using other income sources to cover one's woodworking habit, but who cares. All of the responses have been about making a life in woodworking, and that is valuable information. Thank you for being a big part of this converstion. I hope you learned as much as I did.
Enjoy.
Mel
-----
...if I were a rich man, ladaadaddadada....
Mel,
You have unleashed the furys here. I suggest marrying rich and having the time to leisurely apply oneself to life, in whatever fashion suits you at the moment. Beats being a plumber.... ;>)
Seriously though, I chose my career over woodworking. I enjoyed both, but decided I could support myself better and travel more with landscape construction. I still get to create and build and enjoy that process. That is what makes me tick I know. It was a smart choice for me. I still get to do woodworking for stress relief and it is a sanctuary devoid of clients and deadlines.
I would question your business math Mel. In my experience it is hard to gross 15K and net 10K in any field. The cost of running a business, taxes, license, insurance, rent or maintenance of your own building, utilities, internet to read knots, etc takes a bunch off the top. I look at my business, 35 pct material 40 pct labor and the rest pays for the above and then a bit left over. A 25% return is hard to get and these days it is 15% which keeps the doors open.
I built my own closet system. Had two companies bid it cause I was busy. One was at 3800 and the other at 5200. The higer bid was a company with a CAD table cutting and drilling everything, shipped to my house and screwed together. The 3800 was a small cabinet maker who is now out of business. I build it for 1800 for materials and spent 80 hours building it. So there was a living to me made but no real profit and nothing to cover for the overhead parts.
Interesting topic
AZMO
AZMO
Azmo, don't confuse Mel.
His business math is perfectly valid, and you would agree instantly, but you're forgetting a couple things.
He does his math in Mel-dollars, which are only good in Mel-land.
If you do the conversions, you'll see that he's right on the Mel-money.
As always.
Azmo,
I don't know the math on woodworking, so I put up something and asked if it was realistic. If you read above, a number of people said that I am pretty close. But I figured I might be low, like you said. I have learned a bunch from the intelligent folks who answered with knowledge and thought. Overall, it is pretty good to attract this many posts in a single thread these days. Have you seen any others which come close? I believe a number of folks had fun with this and added some wisdom to the pot.
I did not realize that some people would get upset with my post, saying that I was asking for too much money. Actually, I said in my earlier post that I looked up the average income in my county which is about $107K, and I got to the $150K number by adding on a cost of doing business, which as you say, is certainly low. So one of the questions I was asking was "Can a woodworker expect to be able to make the average in their community. I specifically said that if I were in a lower income county, I would have used a lower number. Bus some folks didn't read what I had said. I am not complaining, such people are in the minority, and some folks just like to take offense.
Hope you enjoyed it,
Mel
Dusty,
Great to hear from you. Glad you chimed in. I am sure you are right that we need a new definition of "middle class". My original post was motivated by the Alan Peters book that I was reading. His mentor and a number of others from his time were making high class furniture, but they had already made their money in architecture and so that covered their risks in woodworking. That is one way to pay for a career or a hobby in woodworking. My career paid for my hobby and now provides a retirement. I was wondereing about the possibilities of a woodworker starting his own business and being able to make it to the middle class. So I made the post and the results were pretty interesting. I believe this is one of the longest threads since Knots went to the new format. It is so long, it is difficult to find new posts. But I found yours.
It seems to me that if one is going to make fine furniture, it can only be for the wealthy, sinch they are the only ones who can pay for it. It seems to me that it would be difficult for someone to make fine furniture for "rich folks" with no hope of making it fartyer up the economic ladder. I wanted to see what others felt. I found out. Some were upset at the high price of getting into the middle class in Fairfax County, Virginia. Others agreed with me. INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH, no one mentioned the book by Peters which got me thinking about all of this. Maybe I read too much. I gotta tell ya -- that is a very good book on setting up a woodworking business, and it has some wonderful photos of his work.
Oh well, I think this thread has run its course, so you got in at the tail end. As always, we didn't shed complete light on the business aspects of fine furniture making, but a lot more info got put on the table by real woodworkers. Even Ray jumped it.
Hope all is well with you. All is well here in Northern VA. My third grandkid was born a few days ago, and that is EXCITING to me. Also, I just spent the last three days in a class by Marc Adams. He is one interesting guy. he talked for about 16 hours over three days. We had about fifty folks attend. He changed my ideas on a number of things.
Have fun.
Mel
Hi Ron,
Your messages are always interesting, valuable and thought provoking. I am sure that having someone who bought something from you three decades ago and wanting more is very satisfying. I can't say that from personal experience since I have never sold anything. I just give it away to family and friends. But. it stands to reason that it would fill one with pride.
Looking through this thread, I see comments from woodworkers from all sides of the issue. Yours is an important view. So aren't theirs.
Peters book certainly is not new. It is new to me. I read a lot but this is the first time I have read this one. I have a lot to learn, as you know. I just spent three days taking a course from Mark Adams. He showed some photos of furniture he has made for his family. Like me, he doesn't sell anything. It all goes to family. He makes his money by running the largest woodworking school in the world. That leaves him time to make exquisite furniture. He has spent over two thousand hours on a sinle piece of furniture. It is a carved piece which is also filled with marquetry, and it is his unique design.
His ideas on making money and woodworking are much different than yours. Of course, his furniture is probably much different than yours. He can affort to spend 2000 hours on a piece, because his school doesn't operate all year round. You would probably have to charge a lot to be able to make such a piece. He LOVES not having the concern of having to sell his furniture to make a living, so he devotes much of his life to his passion - doing woodwork the way he wants to do it, and not the way someone else wants it. if you sell your stuff, you have to have buyers.
I enjoy hearing your approach to woodworking, and his and everyone elses. Each to their own. Few of use significantly change the ideas of others, but it is still very nice to see and hear those ideas, for it lets us open our minds to more and more different thoughts. Of course, not everyone wants to hear all sides to the story. We see that every day in politics. The Right just wants to hear what the Right has to say , and the Left just wants to hear what the Left has to say, and never the twain shall meet.
Luckily all of us woodworkers, like you and I have very open minds, and enjoy learning from one another. That is what makes Knots such a great place. I am amazed at how many people got interested in this thread and posted. We have had some excellent exchanges.
Have fun. Keep making great furniture and enjoying it.
Mel
Ron , I have to agree that it is not just the rich that buy fine and custom made furniture pieces , although many people have never had something made just for them , it is a special thing for those lucky folks that get a piece of us .
I am a 30 year one man shop and have been doing my own form of on the job research on the current buying habits of the local market lately which I suppose may be fairly representative of the most of the U.S.
This is absolutely the opposite of what Mel indicated , since the advent of the wide screen TV none of those old entertainment centers and wall units work anymore ( thank you C###a ) honestly I have built a goodly batch of the more sophisticated Media centers or Media cabinets , from $750 - $3250 avg .
What my take is , most folks can't buy a newer bigger better house or remodel and add much on nor can most afford a new Gourmet kitchen by dusty or Ron right now , but a new wide screen TV seems to have fit into many budgets in this great recession . And for those who have a few more Rubels left a proper if not a $350 big box model base unit may be sought after as other smaller ticket items also are being sold at increasing rates compared to the last Two years .
This I find very interesting , locally the business of the year award from the chamber of commerce found a coffee roaster house and speacialty sales is making money hand over fist .So , most folks (not me) can spend $3 for a cup of Joe but few can afford to pay you and me to do our thing . Even in a down economy some will flourish .
The opportunities are rearing their heads , as the realestate market bottoms out the sharks will come in for the kill .Right now locally $175.000 will buy what was selling for$375.000- $450.000 5 years ago . I'm waiting to start the remodels on those McMansion kitchens .
regards , dusty
Dusty,
I just wrote you a long message. THen I read it, and I threw it out. I am not a mean guy, but my message could easily be taken as a knock on folks who make kitchens. I know a lot more people who make kitchens and other builtin cabinets for houses than I know people who design and make art furniture. Most of the contractors that i know do very nice kitchens. The only furniture makers that I know are through Knots and other similar venues. There are very few people who go into the business of making reproductions of antique masterpieces or the business of making art furniture. That is risky business. Makin kitchens is far less risky than trying to design make and sell furniture of the ilk of Richard Jones or Ray Pine. Kitchens is something which the poor, the middle class and the rich all need and buy. When i was talking about stuff that only the rich buy, I was talking about the stuff that is made by folks like Richard and Ray.
I am definitely "middle class", as is my neighborhood and most of the people that I know. If any of them paid $10,000 for a highboy, their friends would consider them NUTS. I believe this is a middle class cultural value - one shouldn't waste money. However I know a lot of folks who paid $50k for a new modern kitchen. ((I paid $16K ten years ago)) Nobody in my neighborhood goes to art shows and buys "art", be it painting, sculpture or furniture. They do go to "arts and crafts" shows and they do buy woodowork that sells in the $25 to $100 range. That ain't artwork, although some of it is "cute".
My experience is that "ARTWORK" and "THE MIDDLE CLASS" rarely meet. The closest that middle class folks come to art is in museums and when they took "art appreciation" in college.
Hope that clarifies my use of words, which caused some unintended hard feelings when some took me as talking about wha they do for a living, when it was not what I was talking about. Language is a wonderfully obtuse and easily misunderstood medium.
Have fun.
Mel
Mel , You now are mentioning art furniture before you said fine furniture . So we are all on the same page we used to call it Artiture but now some call it " studio furniture " I build fine furniture but not to the abstract lines that spme call art .
I have never felt that you knocked anyone that builds kitchens or anyother .
I would have to think as you not much studio furniture is selling but more functional is , you would not know it becase your phone does not ring as when in business but I am sharing the current reality with you all .
Since you have never existed in the private sector some of us here have much greater real life not read experiences and what I am telling you is your thinking that the poor , middle and rich all need and do buy kitchens , not so currently in the real world .I stopped counting at just over a hundred kitchens over the last 29 years so I think I am qualified and know who buys kitchens .
What the poor , middle (whoever they are ) do spend on are necessities like the plumber or mechanic or anyother that we can not live without , not whimsical kitchens it just is not happening now .
As I alluded to earlier the $3.00 cup of special coffee and the wide screen TV are still in the budget for many , well those with a tad extra are also buying Media cabinets and furniture not reproduction work but new custom furniture . It is the most requested piece I build in the last 2 years , go figure .
regards , dusty,boxmaker
Dusty,
Your explanation of the market for custom-made furniture of the less high falutin' kind raises an interesting question. The kitchens and media centres, if I have it aright, are not the kind of furniture that the owner expects or wants to last forever.....? Is that true? They expect to use the media centre for the life of the media machines (not long in the current heady times of ever-changing electronics and media channels). The kitchens are often scrapped for a more fashionable mode after a decade or even less, or so it often seems.
In short, furniture, like other consumer goods, is subject not just to the fashion of "looks" but also to the ever-changing functions it must serve. As you mention, yesterday's media centres will just not fit the needs of giant plasma screens or tiny iPods.
Which brings me to my question. Is it still the case that customers for bespoke or custom furniture have longevity as an important parameter when they come to specify their wants? As Morgan mentioned, many makers of pieces into which they have put their best skill and work aim to make furniture that will last a century (or 5, if you are J. Carter). Is that attitude relevant anymore? I now know so few people who are content to live with the products of yesteryear (putting aside those very few who acquire antiques and live in an similarly antique mansion......).
If a customer wants a item for use only until it falls out of fashion, or until it fails to have utility in an ever-changing modern life, how should makers respond when recommending designs and materials?
Or is the longevity parameter still wanted, despite the fact that it is unlikely to be tested? For myself I want longevity and high quality materials/design in the things I buy because I intend to avoid following any kind of fashion for the rest of my life. My items must last until I die (aged 120, to get best value from the pension scheme). Even my trousers must last decades (and some have)! But this is not such a common attitude now.
Lataxe
longevity?
Lataxe, if I can just butt in before Dusty answers...I've made (with a lot of help in the shop) something like 500 kitchens, and I can't remember even one occasion where the client raised the question of longevity. They want to know how long the warranty is for ("Until I'm in an old-age home. Don't come around there looking for me...") and if they can ever re-finish it ("Sure, just don't call on me to do it"). They want their kitchen to (1) fit their dream-house image (2) be made of high-quality materials (3) Have some features that they can show off to the neighbors (4) let them feel part of the creative process. And lots more, but never, never, to outlive them. The longevity issue isn't even on the radar.
David,
If I can butt in before Lataxe does ( to midquote you, :-)
You said that no one is looking for longevity on kitchens. I believe everyone is in agreement with that one. If they are not, then they live in a different universe. I believe all of this came up because my original question only had to do with people becomeing makers of fine furniture, for which longevity is an issue, and some of the respondents responded with regard to making kitchens. So there was a bit of a misunderstanding, which may have caused some hard feelings. Sorry about that.
Please read my response to Dusty, which concerned the same thing. I read David's (Lataxe's) response to Dusty. I think he has it right.
There have been many kitchen makers on Knots for all time, yet FWW has little or nothing to do with kitchens. So when I first arrived here, I wondered why the kitchen makers were here. Then I found out that there are folks like yourself and Dusty who do both kitchens and fine furniture. But now I am beginning to wonder if some of the folks here do kitchens and not fine furniture, and do not distinguish beweeen the two.
Have fun.
Mel
Kitchens vs Fine Furniture
Oh, I distinguish very easily. Kitchens is Fine Money Making. When I retire next year I hope to go back to exclusively Fine Woodworking.
Happy Retirement
David,
I like your style. You have done well by doing good, and retirement is coming up and you are going to do what you like to do - fine furniture. That was my path too. I have just been down in the workshop preparing a beautiful highly curly, birds eye maple board. I was able to put a nice finish on it using three BD planes and a card scraper. It took some work and yielded some fun and some learning, and in a while it will be part of a piece of furniture.
When my wife and I retired, we stayed put. We have three kids, all adults now. One in California, one in Florida and one in nearby Maryland. So staying put was a good choice. Besides, we like it here. If you look at the message I sent Dusty a few hours ago, you'll see a photo of my daughter, my first grandson and his new brother, just a few days old. GREAT ADVENTURES. Freddy, the two year old accompanies me into the workshop and asks for the "dribers" which are screw drivers. He grabs one, and heads for a machine, saying "fix, fix." So far, he has not un-fixed anything.
Have fun. Your retirement will be a good one. Good luck.
Mel
Ah, retirement...
Mel, thanks for the kind wishes. I do have a head start on you in the grandfather department. I've got 15 already, 11 of them just a stone's throw from my house. I've been building my retirement shop gradually this year, hoping to be ready by 2011. So here's a pic of 2 of my granddaughters helping to paint the roof beams for the shop.
regards,
David,
So it seems that the prime consideration of those who are after a high end kitchen is how it looks and feels/performs in the eyes of other people...? But they are less concerned with those qualities that have to do with longevity or perhaps even function. (How many are made just to show off to the neighbours yet never cook anything beyond a supermarket readymeal)? Indeed, they may want to refinish their kitchen to meet some future fashion change; but are more likely to scrap it and buy another, assuming they have the wherewithal........? Is that the general mindset of such customers, would you say?
What I'm really wondering is, do people feel the same about fine furniture (excepting reproductions which are meant to replace damaged or missing originals in an historical property)? Is furniture that is studio / contemporary, or whatever we call it, now subject to the same rapid style-redundancy cycle as other consumer goods?
I know that some modern furniture will become very valuable and therefore be preserved. But the value these days seems to have more to do with the celebrity status of the maker than with the intrinsic beauty, form or other quality of the furniture. Of the thousands of modern pieces made in the past, lets say, 50 years, how many survive the fashion cycles and taste-changes? Some of it must but I confess, I never see it in everyday life or everyday homes (even those of the upper middle classes). One is more likely to see a house full of things made "yesterday" , whether mass-market or very expensive/bespoke.
***
My personal motives for making furniture don't really centre on its longevity - I don't care if its in use 100 years from now or not, even though I try to make it well enough to last that long. For me, as an amateur, its about the process of making as much as the result. But many makers do hope for that timelessness and "outside of fashion" quality that means their pieces stand a chance of being valued for more than the turn of a fashion cycle.
In reality, how realistic is that hope in the modern world of planned obsolescence, even for articles made to very high standards - for "fine" furniture?
Lataxe, generally rather sad about the modern world's flighty fashion habit and the associated waste.
For the Eyes of Others...
Of course, I don't have the answers to your questions. But this discussion reminded me of cases where I've seen the above-mentioned tendency taken to extremes. In the Arab sector of Israel there are very well-to-do Arab families in places like Nazareth and elsewhere. It is the accepted norm in their homes to have two distinct kitchens. The first is a show kitchen, completely equipped with modern appliances, cabinets, the very finest (and often the gaudiest) that money can buy. It is never used. In the rear of the house is the real kitchen, where more often than not the women of the house do the actual cooking, using primitive camp-type burners, squatting on the floor to cut vegetables, with a primitive sink for washing up. One needs to see it to believe it, but it is actually so in many homes. Guests are shown the show kitchen only, while all the food myteriously appears from elsewhere. Everyone knows what the arrangement is but it doesn't matter; what's important is the show.
Second
I second all comments and add the other Everyone Question: "When will it be done?"
Dusty
Loved your response. We are in full agreement on everything.
A small point. I have never been in the private sector -- in furniture. I was in the private sector for a decade, developing and selling aircraft simulators and related training programs to commercial airlines and the military. If you ever want to see a line of business that is subject to economic doldrums -- it is the airline industry. Back in 1970, the year I started in that business, nothing was selling. It lasted for years before aircraft sales came back. That affected how management advised (told) us what to develop and what to try to sell. If we didn't sell, we went out of business. I didn't join NASA until 1979. My time in industry was very interesting and valuable to me. It taught me about LIFE, and the real world.
With regard to high end kitchens, I have noticed that even the folks I have met who "design" and build and install them, they use the same cope and stick approach to panels. No one I know uses anything like mortise and tenon for kitchen builtins or media centers. They do use very high end wood, hardward, granite, lighting, and kitchen appliances.
Obviously, I know only a small segment of the contyractor communiy here in Fairfax county. I meet most of them at Woodcraft. I always ask questions, and most seem pretty forthcoming. Right now, some of them are starving, for others, business has never been better -- the reason for good business is that folks are building houses, they are remodeling. And from what I hear from the contractors, it is only the McMansions that are being worked on. I believe there is a large segment of the well-to-do around the Washington DC area who are not much affected by the downturn. We have discussed this before. DC is more recession proof than the rest of the country.
I do wish you the best in your business and in your life. You know that. By the way, I just had a grandbaby. I attached a photo of my daughter, my first grandson and his three day old brother.
Mel
Turnips Mel, it is all about turnips.
DC is more recession proof than the rest of the country.
Well, somehow that does not come as a surprise. The Breadbasket Makers, those who release the funds after getting their share, live there. So in other words, the Turnip truck loses more Turnips when it is closet to home and the fullest!! Hahaha...arrrggg....
Morgan
art does not know financial boundaries. just because it is inexpensive does not mean that it is not an object of art, the same said if a piece is expensive doesn't make it an object of art. there are craftspeople out there who are arists and a lot of artists who are craftspeople. ""My experience is that "ARTWORK" and "THE MIDDLE CLASS" rarely meet. The closest that middle class folks come to art is in museums and when they took "art appreciation" in college."". I feel that you are greatly mistaken here. Mel; in your own words "what is art"??
I really look on kitchens as a cash cow industry. but in the same ilk ther are good and not so good in everything. there are always the few that can make really good furniture or kitchen cabinets or whatever; ther are a lot of mediocre and a lot that don't make mediocre. it is also amazing how many in our society don't know the difference.
ron
President Carter
Ron,
I read somewhere that one of Jimmy Carters pieces sold at a charity auction. He is fairly profilic, and does his Habitat for Humanity duties and builds some nice looking pieces. The figure that comes to the top of my head was 1.2 million. I figure that was a bit over the usual wage for a wood worker...
So the lesson is, be someone famous first, then build furniture so everyone wants a piece of you!! ;>)
“It’s like taking a vacation,” Carter says of his craft. He mostly builds things for his family and friends, but once a year auctions a piece for the Carter Center. In all, his woodworking has brought in more than $10 million. “I hope that 500 years in the future, somebody will be sitting on the bench,” Carter says.
Morgan
https://www.finewoodworking.com/ProjectsAndDesign/ProjectsAndDesignArticle.aspx?id=24944
Morgan,
Politics is interesting business. I wounder: if you buy a President Carter piece for $1.3M at the annual charity auction to support his library, can you write it off as a donation? It may be that his furniture is not central to the donation. Interesting point that you raised.
Mel
Been there.. Didn't do that.
Mel,
Money, work(WW) and lifestyle.. I asked myself the same thing 30 years ago when I graduated from high school. I had just worked part time for 3 years at a custom ww shop building cabinets and furishings. I don't know what the owner of the shop made per year, but the employees earned close to starvation wages. I was in high school, didn't need the money, and was just enjoying the work. Experianced woodworkers there were living on $10K/year with a family of 4. That was a low wage in my area even 30yrs ago. Experianced carpenters were earning about $7.50/hr as an employee in my area at the time. Even that was a low wage. but was 50% higher than a cabinet maker. Teachers were starting at about $18K, I think middle income was about $30K in my area at that time.
Well I had choices to make. I was 18yrs/old, hoped in the future I'd have a nice(modest) home, a ww shop, and food on the table. As much as I wanted a job in the trades, I thought I couldn't make it work. I knew I was no businessman, no salesman, and no genious. So I headed to industry after collage in hopes of bigger $$ and security. I never stopped woodworking. My skills improved, my toolset, and shop grew over time. I built for myself and others. I would buy and pay for tools as WW jobs came in.
The years passed. Now in my 26th year in my "plan B" job. The shop is fairly well furnished. The last of my kids heads to collage in the fall. I now am working up to a "Semi-Retirement" plan with a job in my shop. I can afford to live on a little less now after 25 years of mortgage payments, kids braces paid for, the end of collage bills a few short years away, and my lovely wife returned to work after the kids were older. She will retire a couple of years after I semi-retire.
I knew years ago that I (not everyone, just me) didn't have what it takes to make it as fulltime woodworker and meet my other goals. Looking back, I think I made the right choice for my family.
For those who think that the (very)small shops cut into the work done by union shops, I beg to differ. As I see it your shops are highly efficiant, well layed out, have great turnaround time, can handle large projects, and buy materials at much better bulk pricing. The wealthy, and bigger customers I assume you service won't even talk to me. I need to build for the middle class homeowners who have a different view of the value of a dollar, not businesses, hostpitals and the wealthy. My assumptions could be wrong. As I said I'm no genious. But that's how it looks from my little spec on the map.
You did well, GRW!!!
GRW,
Great story of how you got into woodworking, started a career (Plan B), kept woodworking as a hobby and kept increasing your tool set and skill set, and are getting ready to semi-retire, and do some more woodwork. That is pretty close to my story. I am already retired. Like you, I build skills and a tool set during my career, and I had a lot of fun with it. Gotta tell you that my toolset would not make anyone jealous. Why working in my career, I doubt the total I spent on all tools in the workshop amounted to $4000, but I had everything I needed for the things that I did and the way I did them. As I got closer to retirement, I got on Knots and learned more about hand tools. I had to spend a bit more to get some more tools, but I still kept my expenses down. I don't buy anything I don't use. I don't COLLECT tools. I use em. I have been conservative in my fiscal life and still am. That allowed me, like you, to raise a set of kids, who are doing well.
LIFE IS GOOD. You had a great plan, you modified it as necessary, and you are still on track. WOW. Great job. Great story.
Thank you.
Mel
Been there.. Didn't do that.
Mel,
Money, work(WW) and lifestyle.. I asked myself the same thing 30 years ago when I graduated from high school. I had just worked part time for 3 years at a custom ww shop building cabinets and furishings. I don't know what the owner of the shop made per year, but the employees earned close to starvation wages. I was in high school, didn't need the money, and was just enjoying the work. Experianced woodworkers there were living on $10K/year with a family of 4. That was a low wage in my area even 30yrs ago. Experianced carpenters were earning about $7.50/hr as an employee in my area at the time. Even that was a low wage. but was 50% higher than a cabinet maker. Teachers were starting at about $18K, I think middle income was about $30K in my area at that time.
Well I had choices to make. I was 18yrs/old, hoped in the future I'd have a nice(modest) home, a ww shop, and food on the table. As much as I wanted a job in the trades, I thought I couldn't make it work. I knew I was no businessman, no salesman, and no genious. So I headed to industry after collage in hopes of bigger $$ and security. I never stopped woodworking. My skills improved, my toolset, and shop grew over time. I built for myself and others. I would buy and pay for tools as WW jobs came in.
The years passed. Now in my 26th year in my "plan B" job. The shop is fairly well furnished. The last of my kids heads to collage in the fall. I now am working up to a "Semi-Retirement" plan with a job in my shop. I can afford to live on a little less now after 25 years of mortgage payments, kids braces paid for, the end of collage bills a few short years away, and my lovely wife returned to work after the kids were older. She will retire a couple of years after I semi-retire.
I knew years ago that I (not everyone, just me) didn't have what it takes to make it as fulltime woodworker and meet my other goals. Looking back, I think I made the right choice for my family.
For those who think that the (very)small shops cut into the work done by union shops, I beg to differ. As I see it your shops are highly efficiant, well layed out, have great turnaround time, can handle large projects, and buy materials at much better bulk pricing. The wealthy, and bigger customers I assume you service won't even talk to me. I need to build for the middle class homeowners who have a different view of the value of a dollar, not businesses, hostpitals and the wealthy. My assumptions could be wrong. As I said I'm no genious. But that's how it looks from my little spec on the map.
Ron,
I have been posting photos of my stuff for years. What types of stuff are you interested in? What type of woodwork do you do for fun? I really don't know much about what type of woodwork that you do for pure enjoyment. I would like to use this opportunity that you presented to do just that.
My suggestion is that you set up a new thread called "Photos of recent work", post some photos of your stuff. Invite others to do the same. Sell it as a way of finding out what folks are doing. I will take photos of my recent stuff, and I'll put nice selection.
Great idea. Nice suggestion. You take the initiative, and I'll follow your example. This thread is not the place to do it because it has another objective. I think it has become the largest thread since the new Knots format started.
Have fun. Keep on posting. I love your positive attitude, and your support for a wide variety of ideas, regardless of whether you agree with them or not. I think you should run for Congress.
Mel
Dusty,
Thanks for the nice words. Just seconds ago, I answered Ron. My understanding of the tone of his message was indentical to what you understood it to be, but I tried to answer him in a positive upbeat style. Mom always used to say, "You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar." Maybe some of that attitude can rub off on Ron. Certainly is worth a try.
I took the opportunity presented in Ron's message to think back on the photos I have posted over the years -- the miniature mansion that took seven years (part time, of course) to make, the first piece that I ever made (which started an interesting thread), the bowls that you mentioned that I carved for a year, the five-board benches that I woodburned for some Virginia Tech and Penn State fans in my family, the tracery carvings that I started a thread on last year, and showed how to do them step by step, the glider chair that I made for my grandson, the eagles that I carved, the pair of hanging cabinets that are identical except that one is milk painted pine and the other is curly maple, and on and on and on.......................................................
I believe that I have put up as many photos of my work (actually "my fun") as anyone in Knots. Maybe Ron is new here, or maybe he just wasn't interested in woodworking photos in the past.
Do you remember the guy who put up only one photo of his work? Charles Stanford. Haven't seen him lately. Maybe he is using a different name. He believed that If you posted a photo, people would steal your work. I remember responding tht I would take it as a compliment if someone "stole" my designs. I miss Charles. He made me think, just like you do.
Have fun.
Mel
Dusty
that is a fair statement, but I haven't see any thing of what he does. I was not sitting in judgement, but asked a question. as he does quite a bit of talking and all these wonderful discussions that he attends, I was wondering if he did anything with it all. I cannot be critical of what I haven't seen, not that I am going to be critical. .I do question a lot of things. If you do not ask, then you may never know
ron
Your work
Ron,
I have seen one bench you have made and posted here. Nothing else, but then again I work a ton of hours as well, and miss a lot of things around here. You think highly of work, which is great and I would like to see more. Perhaps you have a web site, youtube vid, or other venue to see more of your work? I would enjoy that, from the looks of your bench it should be interesting. Has your work been published as well, perhaps one of the coffee table books?
Thanks
Morgan
if you had read read the few words that I had with it , you would have realized that it was not mine. It was a bench made by alan peters. I had made a trade with him for it. If you look back to dec and jan you should see 2 or 3 threads of my work in Knots that I started.
I think that Dusty was exaggerating a little
ron
I don't give to hoots about unions. however, the small hobyiests are taking money out of proffesionals hands. The hobbiest often takes far to little money for jobs and influences what society in general thinks craft is worth.
Perceptions of worth
Jason,
Those are two very hard & fast statements you've made:
* hobbyists take money by reducing professional sales;
* inexpensive hobbyist products depress the prices of professional items.
As a hobbyist my experiences tell me otherwise, although they are only one man's experiences of course.
I make pieces for me, the wider family and neighbours or friends. (Getting on for 200 pieces now). Any "commission" is usually either in lieau of buying something from IKEA or similar; or is only made at all because nothing would be otherwise purchased. I can't think of one instance where what I made and gave to someone pre-empted a purchase from a professional maker. This is because my pieces are essentially free whilst those of professional cabinetmaker's are very expensive indeed.
So I will contend that my hobbyist making does not have any effect on your kind of market at all. At worst (best?) it takes a very tiny percentage of business away from Mr IKEA and his ilk. My "customers" were never in your market in the first place.
But this is just my experience. What actual evidence (real world experience) have you to show cases where an inexpensive hobbyist piece displaced a similar commission from a professional? On what actual occasions (no hearsay now!) did a customer decline your offer because an amateur friend had offered to make the same piece for no profit?
***
Lastly I will just mention that in a market that is free trade, the prices are determined solely by the prices and the willingness of consumers to pay them. There are no rules about the means of production or guild-based monopolies. After all, if there were just think how much your coffee, bananas and chocolate would cost!
Lataxe, never keen on monopolies or restrictive trade practices despite his fear of globalisation and the huge economic power it gives global companies (but think of the alternative).
Hobyist
Lataxe,
In my given trade, Landscape, we have tons of home owners like yourself that do it themselves. They gather the boys and move some boulders, plant some rocks...ie mean plants and drink some beer. They end up with some interesting personal spaces to say it nicely. I have seen the work of hobyists in my hood, and the finished product is similar. While it may use the same material, wood and glue, the overall effect is not exactly professional, to put it nicely.
I have never felt that I lost market share from these well intentioned folks. In fact quite the contrary. Seems that the "Spouse" of the guys knows what looks good and what doesn't, and they are often quite happy to get a pro to do the job over or to make it right. I think they know how hard it is then, and apprieciate the design and work that goes into it.
I have one piece I have given to some very close friends, that they otherwise would have bought in their town. The funny thing is, seeing the piece and having seen pictures of its creation, the attention and detail has left them knowing what real furniture should be. They have been educated and are now having other pieces built local, rather than China or ICKeA.
In my experience the education of what is professional and quality, leads to knowledge and people who want better quality. A hobyist can and will provide one either way.
So chalk one up for the hobyist!
AZMO
Morgan,
Every once in a while, someone on Knots says something that rises to the level of WISDOM. IMHO, you have just done so, with your statement:
"In my experience the education of what is professional and quality, leads to knowledge and people who want better quality. A hobyist can and will provide one either way. "
Education can be had by going to school or by private study. Both happen in landscaping, medicine, woodworking, etc. Having gotten to know a wide variety of folks here on Knots as well as back in the "real" world, I am most impressed with the quality of output of those who have sought to become educated in what they do. Here on Knots, Ray Pine is very impressive. He sought to become knowledgeable in the fine differences in furniture styles that happen regionally. It is attention to detail of this order that allows one to achieve the highest level of work in any field.
I have noticed (and it didn't take much work) that some of the more inane comments made in this thread were made by folks who did not exhibit such tendencies toward education ( Note that self study is just as good, if not better than formal education). I did respond to one such post, although I tried to stay positive and supportive, but I decided that such discussions drag my spirit down, and have opted out of continuing them.
Mom used to have some great sayings. One of them was: "Never fight with a pig. Both of you will get dirty, and pigs love to get dirty." Another was "Never argue with a fool. Bystanders can't tell which is which."
Thanks for the Wisdom. Have fun.
Mel
Dusty,
Just because you are not paranoid, that doesn't mean that people aren't out to get you. :-)
I find that some people are not happy unless they are dreaming up a conspiracy theory. Usually, however, they hang around the Cafe, not out here in the sunlight. Ha ha ha ha
Some folks, such as you, take control of their own life and take responsibility for their life. It is much easier (althought much less realistic) to merely blame one's troubles on other people, or even on the Gods.
Let's hope the Gods are happy today. (and the hobbyists too).
You know, there is a theory that a single antique shop in a town doesn't generate much business, but if there are 50 antique shops, all of them make more money. I beleve the same may be true in making kitchens. The more people who are making them, the more people will want them.
But that takes us back to TODAY - many want them but can't afford them. On the bright side, that has never stopped most Americans from going more deeply into unaffordable debt to get something they want. Have you been reading about Greece? and Portugal, and Spain, and Italy? I think we Americans are not alone in spending beyond our means. If these European countries go into default, the economic tradgedy that hit us in the past few years is just a poor shadow of what is going to happen.
So you can see that it is those darn hobbyists in Greece who are causing the REAL harm. (Wow, isn't amazing what you can conclude if your reasoning is not so good. My mind has a mind of its own.
Have fun. And remember, a person who wont take responsibility for their own life CANNOT BE HELPED BY OTHERS.
Mel
An aside,...
Hey Mel, if you can't fix your own toilet, you really shouldn't be allowed to operate any machinery.
Ha ha ha,...don't take offense, I'm just goofing off....
I just got done remodeling two bathrooms in my Mississippi house - well someone else did the heavy lifting on framing, drywall, tile work, etc., but I did install toilets. I'm kinda on a roll here because I feel like I've completely and thoroughly broke the code on either ripping toilets out or putting them back in and fixing whatever problems they have. Not that difficult, really. So easy even a caveman (or a pilot) could do it. Other than the tank being down where the bowl is now, and more of a water conservation effort, now, and some fancy-shmancy store bought valves that claim to make the sound of water flowing under pressure "quiet," or "noiseless," the design hasn't really changed that much in the last 75 years.
Back to painting,...Good luck, Ed
P.S. Next time your kitchen faucet leaks, let me know. I'll fix it for the price of a round trip plane ticket, a home-cooked Italian dinner and a Lie-Neilsen No. 6. I'm actually cheaper than a local plumber and I will assure you that I should have that mail-order plumber's license in hand by the time I get there.
Ed,
OK, next time the toilet breaks, you will fix it. I have replaced the innards on all of our toilets in the time we have been here (since 1979). THis is the first time I had trouble. It wasn't the toilet, but the hose that goes into the wall for the water inlet. There is a compression ring on the pipe that comes out of the wall. When I tried to remove the valve, I believe the compression ring either turned or was scratched, but whatever, it leaked. I wouldn't have known how to fix it, but I watched the expensive plumber use a powered saw to cut off an inch of the pipe, the part with the compression ring, and then put some compound on and another compression ring and another shutoff valve, and screw it together, and it worked like a charm. Less than five minutes. I learned a lot. In my next life, I want to be a plumber.
You can come here and take your family with you, and not fix anything, and we'll have a big barbeque, and if you don't tell anybody, I'll show you how Rob Cosman taught me to make dovetails. (((Well, actually it was his DVD. Ha ha ha ha)))
Have fun.
Mel
Mel, I learned everything I know about home improvement from a lady I'll call "Mrs. House-Flipper." Some people who also read Breaktime or go way back in knots may know who she is.
The way I learned it was, the first thing you should have done when that compression fitting began to leak was to tear down the wall completely and rebuild it with some high quality cement backer board and fancy travertine tile. When the wall was down to bare studs, and while you were waiting for the tile to be shipped in from Italy, and while you were trying to figure out how far in debt you were at any given moment, fixing the compression fitting leak and the toilet would have been simple.
Trust me, I've seen this system work,...Take care, Ed
Ed,
Are you talking about Forestgirl?
Mel
PS - am only trying to get this thread up to 100. Only three more posts to go. I believe that will be a record for the new Knots, where it is difficult to follow a long thread. Some of us have small goals. :-) Meanwhile, I must go down to "my shed", as Lataxe would say, and put the pieces together for a small cabinet which will have three drawers. I am trying to make it with joints which I need practice in (absolute overkill, but just a learning project). The cabinet is joined with half lap dovetails, and the two shelves are inserted with sliding half-dovetail joints. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission told me that this design could withstand a direct hit. Since this is only a training exercise, I am using an exotic wood that is called Poplar. I had some lying around. Someday people will surely ask why someone used Poplar in a complex project. They probably think that woodworkers are born with these skills instead of having to develop them. Wnen I get good, I will use your approach to making bathrooms.
Mel, I was talking about someone else who doesn't post here anymore. Good luck with your project. The one thing I don't like about poplar is the way it smells when you cut it with a table saw. Other than that, cheap, versatile, forgiving,...
Dusty,
One of the best Threads ever to appear on Knots was: What should a contractor never say to a client?
There were Fabulous answers, such as:
- Where should I throw my empties?
- Will your daughter be here when I am doing the work?
OR MY FAVORITE "It's only poplar, but I can stain it to look like cherry."
So while my humble but complex box may be only made of poplar, I may "Stain it to look like cherry." Ha ha ha ha ha.
I have had great fun with some projects that I started to make with no plans. My goal in each case was to use wood that is in the scrap heap, and to do something that I have never done before, and to try to do it without measurements -- just use existing scraps with interesting joiints.
I had heard that making sliding dovetails requires making a bunch of tries that end up as firewood. So I didn't want to make my first try on nice figured wood. Well, so far everything has worked out perfectly on the first try - the half lap dovetails and the sliding dovetails (actually sliding half dovetails). So I should have used the good wood. No problem. It is sitting close by and a second one could be made.
One of the nice things about these little forays into playland is that there is no one clamoring for anything. If the spirit moves me, I may make one of the drawers with a secret compartment that itself has a secret compartment. I Have never done that.
I took a short course from Marc Adams last week and it had a section on design. He gave us a way of sizing drawers in a graduated way which he says really looks good. So I gave that a try too. That wasn't part of the plan when I started the box a day before the class.
If I get tired of all of this freedom, then maybe I will try my hand at a Chippendale Highboy or an art nouveau sideboard, or possibly Greene and Greene. But I am enjoying the freedom to try stuff without worring about failure. After all, it is only that lousy poplar that gives you green and green boogers.
Have fun.
Mel
what a thread
Mel, I Havent been on here in a long time and happened to fine it by accident, good comments. I am trying to teach my 10 yr old some of the basics of ww but I sure wouldnt want him to attempt to make a living at it.I started in school some 40 yrs ago and was a carpenter for a few years then moved into cab building and installing in Texas then Ga. Then started doing small side jobs then my own shop.....27 yrs later here I am building Kitchens maybe 1-2 per yr, rest of the time it fine-er Furniture,but here of late its so slow I have reverted back to some carpentry work on nearby homes.So If a young person wants to have a roller coaster of a career I would say have a plan B or a wife with a good $ job.
Thanks to all for the input. Later Rick
Hi Woodbutcher.
It is great to make your acquaintance. Good luck with your ten year old. I hope you get to teach him some woodworking. My three are grown, and within a month, all will have children of their own. All three "worked" in the shop with me when they were kids, but none of them developed my love of woodworking. All we can do for our kids is to show them how to live right, and hope it rubs off. Usually it does. I think that kids learn what they see, not what they hear.
Sounds like you have had quite a career. Glad you were flexible enough to roll with the punches as times changed. Some people do it well, and some don't. Life doesn't come with a any guarantees, except for death and taxes. My career had some fits and starts, just like yours. Now I am enjoying retirement. For the next few days, one of our grandsons will be with us. When he is here, I sleep well. HE WEARS ME OUT, but it is a lot of fun. He comes into the workshop and asks for a "drobber", which is a screwdriver,and he proceeds to poke it at things. So far, no real damage, and he is having fun.
Unfortunately, most of the schools dont teach "shop" any more, like they used to, so the kids don't get a feel for handtools or power tools. So if your kid is going to learn, it will probably be at home.
Thanks for writing. I have enjoyed this thread too. Glad you did. There are a bunch of great folks around here who are willing to share their stories. We can all learn from each other, and we can all have some fun doing it. Let's stay in touch here on Knots.
Enjoy,
Mel
Over One Hundred
Wow Mel I didn't think I would be able to navigate through over a hundred posts on this new format. Very interesting read though, I'm like you a hobbyist and have never sold anything I've made, mostly furniture for our house, working on a chest of drawers for our bedroom set right now
Well you have a great day and enjoy your time with the grandchildren.
Thanks for the intresting thread.
Mike.
Mike,
I am glad you enjoyed the thread. It has been fun and has produced some useful info. I didn't know that there were so many kitchen makers who hang around Knots. I thought they would be over in "Fine Homebuilding". I thought FWW and Knots were mostly for folks who made very high end furniture (both hobbyist and professional). But I was wrong. There are a bunch of kitchen makers here. There are also folks like Dusty who do both (and very well).
Why don't you post a photo of the chest of drawers you are making when you are finished. I am making a very complex little box that holds three little drawers. I will post a photo when it is done. It is eyeopening to me to see what everyone else is doing.
The most surprising thing about this thread is that it already has almost 110 posts. In this new Knots format, it is unheard of to get to more than a handful of posts, so this thread must have been found interesting by more than the usual number.
Enjoy. Thanks for writing.
Mel
Mel.. I, yesterday, took my 5 year old girl grandfbaby girl into my very small woodworking shop. She is a little girl and she was arfaid that a spider was in there.. I told her.. Many spiders in here.. She told me that she was sure that I would save her.. She still wanted to go in the shop..
I have a flat roof on my house... I took onto to the roof and she inspected every place. I held her hand if she wanted to look over the edge... I stood back much more to the edge as she did while she looked over the edge as I WAS still holding her hand! She is much braver than me as too heights!
Will George,
Good to see you get into this thread. I am amazed it has lasted this long. Of course, by now the original issue is long gone, and folks are just having fun. Hanging around with the grandkids is great fun. Freddy is here for a few days. He sure knows how to give orders. He must have been in the military in a former life.
Have fun,
Mel
Good Morning Dusty,
I have worked from plans most of the time. I have always wanted to design for myself but didn't have the nerve. For my first thirty five years of woodworking, I worked ether from plans of from a photograph. It was my time with David Savage which convinced me to take some chances. What the heck, it's only wood.
Greene and Greene is beautiful stuff, but if I have a desire to try some art nouveau before I do that. I also have the urge to do some carving. But before that, I want to get a few more months under my belt of doing joinery which is new to me. I have a LONG way to go. Somehow I get intimidated before I do my first "whatever". I have been thinking about sliding dovetail joints for a few years. Then last week I just did four, and I should have done them years ago. Nothing to be intimidated by. Just another joint. Well, I have a number of these little hurdles that I want to get out of the way now that I am in the mood. Last night I glued up the little poplar box with the half lap dovetails and the sliding dovetails. It went together nicely.
So now I am going to make drawers. I'll get some more practice at half lap dovetails. I will see what is left in the scrap heap to use for drawer making. Then maybe I'll make some carved pulls for the drawers - maybe C scrolls or S scrolls. This box will not win any contests, but it will remain a favorite for a long time because it was primarily a "hurdle jumper".
I know this is difficult for you to understand because you jumped these hurdles a long time ago. I spent too many years not even recognizing the existence of handtools. Now I am fascinated by them. OK, back to the shop. Have fun.
Mel
GRW,
You make an interesting point and one very relevant to the American traditions of can-do and self-sufficiency. Long ago when your constitution and political system were being wrought, there were various underpinning assumptions and preferences that envisioned a society of free men with sufficient education, skill and property allowing them to be largely self-suffient or to trade as equals with others.
Now, that vision was very soon overwhelmed by the advent of a small class of capital owners, accruing to themselves ever-more the land and means of production, whilst the vast majority became wage earners dependent on their largesse. So it is today.
But the vision of personal independence lives on, not least amongst many of the Knotters, who are self-employed cabinetmakers with some very can-do stuff in them. The same vison and can-do-ness, I believe, motivates we craft amateurs also. In both cases, we want to be self-governing and free of employer dictates concerning our production. Our lives are our own responsibility with choices free of exploiters, as far as practicality allows.
The professionals emphasise the freedom of the tradesman whilst the amateur emphasises the freedom of self-sufficiency. Personally I feel that they share a common bond in this and are not rivals, economically or otherwise.
****
In practice I do a lot of small fixing and maintenance jobs about the hoosey. But if the plumbing, plastering, roofing etc become more complex, I find a competant tradesman. He or she will do a better job out of better experience, skill and knowledge than I can achieve with my lesser amateur abilities. Meanwhile I still feel reasonably self-governing as I can cope with that everyday maintenance.
If I lacked the money to pay the professional I might attempt more; indeed, I have in the past, out of economic necessity. I didn't notice any tradesmen going out of work because of my failure to employ their services, now or then. :-) However, I notice that a tradesmen generally does a better quality job than my own merely adequate work.
And for this better quality, greater skill, wider ability I am prepared to pay. I don't think that a tradesman should be paid a pittance because I could (at a push) do some of what he does; or because there is some foolish social hierarchy that suggests tradesmen are worth less than accountants or popstars. When a lad calls and achieves in 15 minutes what would take me all day, I pay for his ability and his time to travel to and from my hoosey.
I would rather pay a plumber a couple of hundred quid to deal with the pipesI cannot manage than pay fees to one of the huge variety of middlemen and consultants that insert themselves into the real work procedures of real workers doing real things. Indeed, I have zero use for the latter and often wonder how they manage to charge a zillion dollars a day for their "services". Who is daft enough to pay them? Perhaps those themselves who perform similar "work" and prefer to keep its price high within the great socio-economic con-trick of the C21st Western world.
Lataxe, less and less keen to hand his life over to others, especially at consultant rates or to keep greedy middlemen in luxury.
Lataxe, Lataxe, Lataxe...
You go from astute observation and balancing both sides of the balance sheet to the amateur mistake of reading only the side that appeals to your premise...
I am appalled. Appalled, I say!
You said "Long ago when your constitution and political system were being wrought, there were various underpinning assumptions and preferences that envisioned a society of free men with sufficient education, skill and property allowing them the be largely self sufficient..."
The other side of the ledger says that this "education" you speak of was largely missing, most Americans were illiterate at the time the constitution was written. (Including Constitution v 1.0, the Articles of Confederation).
It also says that average life expectancy was about forty years, because medicine (a direct function of education) was so primitive that the treatment for a bullet wound in the arm was amputation.
The reason that "utopian" (I use the quotes because there's no way I would voluntarily go back to a survival level existence, living in a one room cabin with a dirt floor, no hot water or electricity, let alone no table saw) society evolved into a society with stratified economic classes is because it extends the total abilities of that society. A surgeon can't do the research necessary to learn to transplant a heart if he has to spend his waking hours fighting grizzly bears, scratching in the dirt to crown corn and turning spindles to build his own Windsor chairs.
Jampot,
You are reading over much into my rant as even I, a proto-codger, know that it's no longer 17summick or other. Circumstances have changed and now the methods of a basic self-sufficiency and the associated knowledge/skills are different. Nor does one wish to return to a golden age since none ever existed.
And that vison of every person being self-sufficient or trading with equals, to a large degree, may have been somewhat utopian yet is does speak for what, even today, we tend to think of as freedom - freedom from not just the yoke of economic necessities but also freedom from the additional burden of being bound to the dictats of a wage-paying business emporer with little or no concern for our welfare beyond our efficiency as a cog in his profit-making machine.
However, it is possible to consider what the principle of self-governance in different socio-economic and historical environments might manifest as; and what might be inimical to it. Assuming there is still an appetite for freedom of course (some do like to be slaves, wage or otherwise). Today it is not really about running a small C18th farm.
One tack into the cruel wind of industrialisation, not to mention the drowning tide of Experts, Marketeers, Media barons and other freedon-thieves puppeting our every every behaviour, is to seek small skills for the everday mechanics of our lives. It may sound like utopianism to you but I do these things to save myself from total modern slavery:
* refuse to be a fashion victim - avoid greed and envy;
* educate myself about anything and everything, via multifarious and antagonistic schools of thought;
* buy/make things primarily for their function and ability to last & last;
* ignore all adverts (as in never look at them) including the ideology-adverts (the media, particularly the news media);
* skill up on the small but telling things such as that hoosey maintenance stuff, marital relations and staying healthy without a quack toting a drug company;
* never buy from monopolies or cabals, such as food from supermarkets or opinions from newspapers;
* make, grow or trade-for a lot of my own stuff.
Well, you get the idea. Why give your life to a corporation, which will simply milk you of labour, money and your own thoughts until you are nowt but a consumer husk of a person?
***
Well, such things are a partial success at best. I spent 32 years as a government wage slave to buy my current freedom. And some conditions of slavery are more comfortable than others (mine wasn't too bad) so let's put aside thoughts such as "better dead than red" (or blue or orange). Also, mass-production does lower unit cost, stimulate innovation and generate new & useful items.
But how much personal freedom are you prepared to sacrifice for those comforts and industrial products? I know what my equation says.
Lataxe, fabianistic despite his conservatism.
Conflict!
Lataxe, given a conflict between words and actions, I always believe the actions.
Yer words are here for all to see, and according to them, (yer words) the actions are 32 years in a government job.
Direct conflict!
So I know what you say, and I know where you really stand, in spite of all the purty words. :)
jammer,
"Yer words are here
jammer,
"Yer words are here for all to see, and according to them, (yer words) the actions are 32 years in a government job."
"given a conflict between words and actions, I always believe the actions"
Those are hard words. There is much truth in them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said it thus, “What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say.”
And yet my own experience tells me that everything , nearly, occurs along a continuum, neither all of one or all the other.
No-one-- even Robinson Crusoe had his man, Friday- is totally self sufficient, and to poke a stick at a retiree-pensioner touting his own newly won independence seems uncharitable. We, some of us, reading this in 'er Majestie's domain, may yet have need of a few of his 'ard earned pension-pounds, to maintain our own sense of liberty, no? and th' auld doddery gent might be a begrudgin' of partin' wi' em, if we rile 'im up, wot? wot? Old sod has a longbow, after all.
Ray
Ray,
He he - I don't mind a Jammer-poke in the least, as it is good for a fellow to have his contra-poses closely examined. 32 years as a civil servant is hardly an advert for a life of self-governing freedom of action and economic self-support, I confess.
But, as you suggest, we wend a winding way in our lives. Not all paths are straight through the sunlit meadow to where we want to be. Also, how could I legitimately criticise those dolefull aspects and behaviours of large organisations if I had not personally experienced them? When Fat Businessmen or tax-dodging fly-by-nights criticise government and its inefficiencies I just laugh. Their criticisms are ignorant, self-serving and would still be made if taxes were a tenth of a cent in the dollar and their policy had rid us of all criminals, foreign adversaries and landfills.
But I digress.
I think there is a good case to be made against the inevitability of industrialisation and its lies concerning an ever improving progress towards some kind of historically inevitable nirvana of capitalist-engendered super technology products and leisure-life. On the contrary, the current dominance of the banker-business hegamony is just one possible socio-economic arrangement brought about by those who profit from it most. You may have noticed much of the world (including large sections of the USA) are not filled with techno-leisure but rather with that "leisure" of the forced kind (no soup) or a life of near total drudgery 60 hours or more a week.
But those who profit grow ever smaller in number whilst the poor increase in number and get ever poorer. I notice that unemployment is again up in the USA; that many cities are looking like post-apocalyptic movie sets from films imagining nuclear holocaust; and the accelerating numbers of the population falling below the average earnings figure. Also, they are raping the planet, which may end in tears for all of us. How would you like to be living on the Louisianna coast just now; or in the remains of New Orleans or Detroit?
*****
Woodwork opened my eyes to the possibility of a different mode of life to that of cog in someone else's great machine. Not that I'm not willing to be such a cog now and then, especially if it is government cog where the governement may be inefficient but is still an essential protection against the evil intent of empire-minded nations elsewhere, owners of dark satanic mills and syndicates of wild-eyed religiosoes or Party vanguards.
Down this lane and that around here there are farmers who, being no longer subsidided by government yet not content to be held to ransom by supermarket monopolies, have formed local co-operatives to cut out the middlemen and sell direct to people who prefer to get their food from known sources at real prices. Loh and behold! Their markets are small but growing. They produce quality (no chemical-works cruel agribusiness practices) and (gawd!) they are cheaper than the supermarkets!
So much for the myth of industrialised mass-production resulting in better, cheaper goods. This can happen; but not where profit-is-all so standards of production fall, customers are duped via advertising and packaging, profits are obscene.
If it can be done with food it can be done with other things. Indeed, it is. What do you think all them small furniture makers such as yourself are doing? I'm sure you know better than I do. Perhaps you professionals need to learn only the means to get prices down and quality right to make their wares more affordable, just like those farmers did. Perhaps you already have?
But cabinetmakers are much less likely to succeed if their motivation is to make $100,000 a year rather than to provide quality products that people want and can afford. The disappointment of the greedy is all to rife and leads to a moral maze.
Meanwhile I support my Populist and Pragmatic philosophical stances with that fine civil service pension. Thank you Mr Taxpayer!
Lataxe, probably a Terrible Hypocrit.
Inspired, I think
Lataxe, Jammer, Joinerswork, et. al.
A lot of deep thoughts and wonderfully worded ruminations about the state of life in general. Was, is, and will forever be. As my 94 year old father used to say, shortly after losing his wife (my mother) - "I'll make it, not everybody in the world is jumping for joy every day."
Anyone been to Huddersfield lately?
Jerry
Jerry,
I really liked your post. I am surprised that no one responded to it. It shows real wisdom, and a deep understanding of the proper priorities of life. My father is also 94, and my mother is deceased. Dad can't see so well or hear so well any more, and his health is slowly deteroriating, but when he gets a visit or a phone call from one of his brothers or sisters or one of his kids, he lights up. He loves to talk about the good times we had. For him, the present days are not good times, but he remembers specifics about good times with all of his family and all of his friends, and he loves to talk about them.
We hang on to the good times, and as you so astutely said, not all times can be good times. But those of us with our health and our faculties can make the most of it, and can help make times as happy as possible for others. For some strange reason, some folks, and Knots is not immune to this, some folks seem to only be able to boost themselves up by dumping on others. I have always felt that if one has to pump onesself up by taking shots at others, one must have a low opinion of oneself.
Fortunately, the largest portion of Knots, by far, are upbeat, and focus on the joy and passion of woodworking and the issues that occur in carrying out that passion. The give and take in such conversations is quite enjoyable, besides being informative.
I think it is good to walk through a hospital every once in a while. It helps drive home how lucky we are just to have our health and a mind that is working reasonably well. That is something to be celebrated, and making beautiful and useful things of wood is a great way of doing that celebrating.
Tell your Dad that another woodworker said Hello, and sends his best regards from Burke, Virginia, and that I will tell my 94 year old father about him and his wisdom. I hope he has lots of good times left, and that he makes the most of them, as well as of the ones that aren't as good. It is difficult to find new topics to talk to my dad about. WHen I call him tomorrow, one of the topics will be your Dad.
Keep on postin'. I like the way you think.
Mel
32 years as a civil servant is hardly an advert for a life of self-governing freedom of action and economic self-support, I confess.
Lataxe this hardly qualifiys as a Utopian version or life. It does show a great deal of fortitude, ability to play dodge ball with the big boys, and survival skills. The thing that amazes me is the fact that you are not now a burned out husk of a lad, sittin and wathcin Monty Python reruns on the Tele, watching your hair grow grey and fall out. Kudos for working the system, and finding a way to retire period. Being wiser and enjoying a the new direction of life, and the wisdom to contemplate a better way to live, seems enviable to me.
I am afraid far to many or our generation have nothing to show for the years of hard work and won't have pensions. They will be working shift work till they roll over and die. Perhaps those that are poking at you with sharpened sticks are regretting decisions made decades ago?
As I seem to recall, the last rider who crosses the finish line wins the race.........and those who started fast and made tactical errors did not.
Morgan, who hopes his self directed pension does not dissapear to the greed of the bankers.
Morgan,
In this conversation, I have seen two misperceptions:
1) that civil servants are worthless do-nothings who just go through the motions of their job to get one of those great pensions, and
2) the pensions of those civil servants are not in jeapordy.
Concerning #1, we have all see lousy civil servants. All you have to do is to take a package to the post office, or go to renew your drivers license. But some of the most creative, most effective human beings I have ever come across have been civil servants. The nice thing about being a civil servant is that you are difficult to fire. As a result, you can really go all out to do the right thing. I have known a number of folks who have done this.
Concerning #2. Look at the population of Greece. Most of them are civil servants, and on the dole. THeir entire system is about to collapse. Now look at the US. Many states and cities have a growing number of civil servants (teachers, police, fireman, garbage men, etc etc etc) who are due a pension, and many of these cities and states don't have the funds to pay the retirements that have been "earned". Just wait until the **** hits the fan. There will be a time in the near future when Medicare is not as generous as it is now, and when Social Security will go broke if its payouts are not reduced. Folks on "guaranteed pensions" should be worried. After Greece, watch what will happen in Spain, Portugal and Italy, and then Ireland. same thing..............
Life is hard. THen you die.
Have fun.
Mel
Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Civil Servants
Mel,
1. I have been married to a civil servant for 35 years. I have seen her accomplish great things, and I have seen the petty workings as well. My point of Lataxe surviving as long he did without suffering dementia comes from a personal perspective. A few months from now, things will different in our household. Hopefully dementia is a passing phase...;>)
2. I do not have my head in the sand about the pensions, SS or Medicare. I have made plans otherwise, but the bankers make me nervous. Regardless who runs our goverment they will do what they need to do to be reelected. Self Serving to the end, either side of the isle. So I assume you are worried about your Nasa pension as well? Hopefully, you do not plan on dying young...;>)
Life is easy or hard, your perspective determines the emotion. Regardless time is limited, but it is the output that counts every day!
Morgan
Morgan,
Ah those bluemen and their blindspot concerning the necessary institutions to support a civil society. Without the government and its civil servants their lives would be "nasty, brutish and short" - no opportunity for them or anyone else to make profitable gew gaws as they would be in some Baron's army or field. Yet they persist in thinking themselves Davy Crocket or Howard the Hero out of that Ayn Rand "novel". Cuh!
****
Consider these Taunton magazines. They do present a signal that many of us wage slaves (actual or ex) have found the path to a better way. In our hoosey there is not just furniture-making but veggie-growing, clothes making and nest-building. Tradesmen do come to help with the severely esoteric matters but the ladywife and I have got control of at least a little of our own lives. Mrs Taunton has been a Great Help.
Soon I will also be able to do stained glass and entertain myself (without aurally flinching) using a guitar! When the bad men come for my groats and silverware, I will be able to sit up on the (well-maintained) roof to drive them orf with arrers. I may get rid of the motorcar and revert to the only transport I found needful until aged 40 - a bicycle. What a saving I will make - enough for some posh stained glass perhaps.
*****
Yes, there is the fine rescue-barge of a pension keeping us afloat. I look at it this way - it is small compensation for the million quid that would justly be awarded to such a fine ex civil servant if only queenie wasn't spending it all on big empty houses in Scotland or elsewhere. Then there are those MP expenses!! It's not as though they spent them on anything worthwhile, such as a new spade for the allotment or a Marcou plane.
Lataxe, who has indeed wiggled hisself out of harms way.
Ray, I'm pickin' on Sir Lataxe for one simple reason: unlike most of the knotheads, he's worth savin'.
He already has the ability to read and write reasonable English, (even if it's that weird English y'all use over there) he has a lovely wife, and he demonstrates the ability to think critically on occasion.
Now if we could just get him to drive on the right side of the road...
A recurring process in Knots
Ray,
Universal truths are hard to find. There are a few. Maybe we should do a thread on the universal truths in woodworking, someday. But today, in perusing how this thread is going through its death throes, I notice something that I have seen quite often in Knots. Often, but not always, a long thread about a woodworking topic ends by morphing to a philosophical orientation. Please don't that as a negative. I think it is just fine, since it fulfillsthe second of the two things that Knots provides such a good platform for:
- discussing woodworking topics, and
- enjoyable give and take among woodworkers.
I have heard folks talk about the problem of threads being hijacked. I don't believe the term "hijacking" is appropriate or useful around here. I think in terms of "inspired, creative, and reasonable redirecting of activity to achieve flexible and evolving goals." It is kinda like the fact that there are no errors made in woodworking, merely "opportunities for personal growth, and project refinement".
The fact that woodworkers would use a thread that is 120 posts long, and very difficult to follow the "subthreads", to hold such self-organizing conversations. The difficulty they must go through do do this make is abundantly clear that Knotheads REALLY enjoy the non-woodworking give and take.
I did read Lataxe's long message which Jammer responded to with the negative comment about his career. I found nothing in Lataxe's message that I disagreed with. I was glad to see that Lataxe didn't take Jammer's response badly. I wouldn't either. Jammer was just being Jammer.
I think that if a grammar school ever calls me in to give advice to kids who get into arguments at recess, I will take a copy of the last part of this thread, to give the kids a way to discuss what they have been involved in without having to talk about each other. That makes it so much easier to solve problems.
Enjoy,
Mel
Lataxe.. You put on as a type A male. Refers to the sex of an organism, or part of an organism, which produces small mobile spermatozoon can fuse with a larger female ovrum.. You put on some type of a A male that just does not fit what you type in here.... Sir.. You are just a pussycat! I love your thoughts.. I maybe, in time, will understand all your strange words!
What the heck, it's only wood. You forgot state it is now EXPENSIVE wood!
Morgan,
In this conversation, I have seen two misperceptions:
1) that civil servants are worthless do-nothings who just go through the motions of their job to get one of those great pensions, and
2) the pensions of those civil servants are not in jeapordy.
Concerning #1, we have all see lousy civil servants. All you have to do is to take a package to the post office, or go to renew your drivers license. But some of the most creative, most effective human beings I have ever come across have been civil servants. The nice thing about being a civil servant is that you are difficult to fire. As a result, you can really go all out to do the right thing. I have known a number of folks who have done this.
Concerning #2. Look at the population of Greece. Most of them are civil servants, and on the dole. THeir entire system is about to collapse. Now look at the US. Many states and cities have a growing number of civil servants (teachers, police, fireman, garbage men, etc etc etc) who are due a pension, and many of these cities and states don't have the funds to pay the retirements that have been "earned". Just wait until the **** hits the fan. There will be a time in the near future when Medicare is not as generous as it is now, and when Social Security will go broke if its payouts are not reduced. Folks on "guaranteed pensions" should be worried. After Greece, watch what will happen in Spain, Portugal and Italy, and then Ireland. same thing..............
Life is hard. THen you die.
Have fun.
Mel
an observation to the original question.
Mel figures that he would have to produce $15,000.00 of labour a month in order to survive. lets base this on the 170 hr basic work month(ne flex days here, 8hr a day-40hr week.. one wouklld have to bill at about $93.00 an hr for shop rate + materials. the hard thing to do is to be productive for 8 hrs everyday when one works by ones self. this is not like working in a non productive job ( not trying to insult or hurt anyone feelings here). it is difficult to measure productivity in most jobs today. If i am not doing something for someone, I am not getting paid. i feel lucky if I get in a real 5 hrs productivity in a day,. there are just so many distractions in a day. there is the phone, customers coming in or hobbiests trying to suck info from you, email, whatever to taking the dog for a pee. It takes about $3,000.00 a month to open the doors everyday(this is not working out of your basement). One is goong to have pretty good self discipline to pull it off. if you are going to have your nose that close to the wheel all the time, are you still going to love what you do. maybe we should just up the labour rate so that you don't have to produce that many billable hrs in a day. Now comes the kicker, can you produce the quality of work that would justify that type of renumeration consistently
ron
Ron,
You said: " Mel
Ron,
You said: " Mel figures that he would have to produce $15,000.00 of labour a month in order to survive."
I never said that. I did ask the question whether a prospective "fine woodworker" could make it into the middle class. I found that in my county, the median income is $107K. I guessed that to take home this much, he would have to take in about $150k a year, and broke that down by month. I then asked if real professionals could give me feedback on that, And they gave me some great feedback.
I did find a lot of good information in your post. Thanks for putting it up there.
Mel
first off a 40 hour week is pretty much nonexistent whether you are a owner/operator or in a large production shop. where i work we work 5-6 10 hour days a week. If you are only putting in 40hrs you are probably losing money, overhead is simply to high to make it on that few hours.
you would be suprised at how many hours a day are productive and yes i still enjoy doing it. I even go home after work and work in my own shop. The way i see it is i get to spend all those hours at work doing something i enjoy rather than sitting behind a desk hating every minute of it.
well I think that we have to use a figure as a starting point and the 170 hr month has been the std I imagine as long as you have been working. If you are working for someone every hr should be productive
ron
Ron,
As you see in the quote you made of my original post, I never said that it would take $15K a month to survive in fine woodworking. The last sentence in that quote is a request for professional fine woodworkers to let me know if my ESTIMATE, and my method of coming up with my estimate was valid. I had stated that the $15K number is for an area with a very high cost of living, and that other areas would be much lower. Somehow, a few folks who were looking for trouble latched onto the $15K number, and forgot (or didn't read) about how I got to it, and the fact that I was talking about art furniture, not kitchen making.
You mentioned that it might be difficult to keep making that much a month. Well, there are folks who do. The rest of my response has to do with them.
WHile a bunch of good info came out in this thread, there was one point which is crucial to the success of a studio furniture maker -- the ability to attract customers who can afford the high prices. These people are both artists and businessmen. I think that is a great combination. I believe Maloof was getting upwards of $30K a rocker in the end. One doesn't pay that much for a "chair". One pays that kind of money for a work of art which will be cherished.
Please look up Hal Taylor, at
http://www.haltaylor.com/Make_own_rocker.htm
Hal lives not far from me. He makes Maloof type rockers and sells them for $5K apiece, and he makes one a week. That ain't bad money. He is doing good and he is doing well. He is a very nice guy, too.
I had the great pleasure of a visit from David Savage last year. He can be found at:
http://www.finefurnituremaker.com/
He makes six to ten pieces a year at from about $8k to about $30k, and stays fully busy. He also runs a school which pulls in a number of students every year. The cost of his school is high, BUT as Richard Jones said, David has a long history of turninng out people who are successful makers of studio furniture.
There is no need to go on. There are a fair number of folks who make studio furniture (not kitchens) and who do very well, even in a down economy. I wish they were here on Knots to offer themselves as role models for future makers of bespoke furniture who don't want to settle for making kitchens and only scratching out a living, and convincing themselves that they are doing it because they have a passion for woodworking. Hal and David have a passion for woodworking too. They also make a nice living off of it too.
In the talks that both Hal and David made to my woodworking guild, both addressed the need to be able to find clients who can pay the price that is necessary to support the design and making of art furniture.
We have some successful makers of very high end furniture here on Knots. I am not sure, but I have the feeling that they didn't get into the real issues involved in this thread because of the hard feelings expressed by some of the kitchen makers. Why exascerbate the hard feelings? When Hal and David addressed my woodworking guild, there were no kitchen makers in the audience, only people who are into high end furniture. That is a completely different audience.
My initial message was complex. It involved the topic of how to fund one's foray into making art furniture. I mentioned Alan Peters' reference to rich architects getting into furniture making. There are many ways that hobbyists have found to fund their love of such work (Fun, actually). Many, like Lataxe and I, are retired. Others got into writing about woodworking, or teaching woodworking, or making money in other fields, like making kitchens, and then doing fine woodwork in their spare time.
Some of these hobbyists, like Samson (Sean) are HIGHLY skilled. Others, like me, are climbing up the learning curve, and learning the skills involved in both the design and making of high end furniture. It is fun to see how creative hobbyist woodworkers can get in finding ways to fund their passion. It is also very intellectually satisfying to learn how successful professional FWWers have gotten to the point of having a cadre of loyal clients. As I remember, folks like Michaelangelo got their commissions from places with a lot of money, like the Church, not from serfs.
Have fun. Enjoy. I get the feeling you are very serious. I enjoy the give and take for its intellectual challenge and content. I am not interested in making money in by making high end furniture. I merely find it interesting to find out how some people actually do it, just like I am interested in history, music, and raising grandkids.
Mel
the classic spin
Let's get things straight.. Mel , you stated, " "I" am guessing that "I" would need to take at least $100,000.00/year home(net). that is your statement that you feel that you would need, or you wouldn't have said it. I feel the relationship of threst of the figures correspond. others cannot not respond as to what you need, but they can respond to the relationship of tyhe nbrs.
professional fine woodworkers, are the only type of woodworker that you originally mentioned. I see that has now been altered. what are we really talking about?. the other part that is confusing is what is this person doing. are they a self employed individual, are they employing workers or are they of the ones that you are dropping the names of who may be doing some woodworking, running a school and selling their educational spinoffs such as videos and things
I am only referring to the individual fine furniture maker which I think that the original question meant to ask.. I am not talking about teaching nor am I talking about having helpers. I didn't say that it couldn't be done as there are a few out there doing it and it will take high self discipline.You don't step out of your mother's womb and start at that level either. it takes years of work to develop tjhose skills and to develop that kind of client base
ron
Ron,
I see no value in continuing this conversation with you. No hard feelings. Enjoy. Best of luck.
Mel
"are they a self employed
"are they a self employed individual, are they employing workers or are they of the ones that you are dropping the names of who may be doing some woodworking, running a school and selling their educational spinoffs such as videos and things"
Sid, Mel has dropped my name into this thread a few times. I have been in the furniture business in one form or another since I started as a trainee in 1973. Since my initial training I have worked in the industry in various capacities ranging through joiner, cabinetmaker to workshop manager to self employed furniture designer and maker during the time I lived in Texas. In 2003 I had the opportunity to move back home to the UK because I was offered a job teaching furniture subjects at a college in the south of England. I'm still teaching, although I am now the course leader of the Foundation Degree/ BA (Hons) in Furniture Making at a different college in the north of England.
I still run a very part-time furniture design and making business in between my teaching duties, and exhibit and sometimes sell my work, do paid consultancy work from time to time, and I also write on furniture subjects for publication, but I don't videos, DVDs or the like. I suppose in a way my current profession is a natural progression through a career. I started at the bottom working at a workbench and I've progressed into a form of management. Managers rarely get their hands dirty as they are too busy running the show: the workers do all the grunt work. In my case students are a fair substitute for workers in a sense, because not only do I manage the course I run, but I quite frequently have to carry around in my head, and be able to supply instant solutions, on anything up fifty or sixty different furniture design and make jobs/projects that the collective furniture student body are working on as individuals.
None of that makes me better or worse than anyone else, or even more qualified to opine on furniture topics than any other commentator. I haven't got rich from following this career path, but I've followed it because I love it, and life has taken some interesting turns along the way. I have to admit that I found living in Texas a pretty miserable experience specifically because I loathed the climate, even though I really liked the people-- Americans are a generous lot on the whole and can be great fun to be around. But Texas was also enriching because it allowed me to add a decent understanding of American mores and values, and importantly, gave me insights into the ways of American woodworkers.
Anyway, I just thought I'd pop into this thread to say hello to you as I see you are very new around these parts-- less than half a year by the looks of it, unless you're maybe a poster from the old Knots that's adopted a new handle. It's unfortunate perhaps that Mel does like to bring my name up from time to time. I think he maybe likes something about me or perhaps it's the way I write in posts that he likes; I'm not really sure what it is as I'm nothing special, and I'm just another woodworker with a bit of knowledge I've picked up along the way. Slainte.
Original Post
Mel,
I reread your original post, and for the life of me, I don't know where you solicited Art Furniture, Studio Furniture, and excluded Box Makers. How did you to come back now with that qualifier. You asked :'just how one could get started toward a career in fine woodworking these days?"
You have now taken a very select , older established furniture builders that are commanding a high prices for their work and applying that this is success. Your career went many directions, as has mine and I wager everyone on knots. You simply don't start as a master and go forth and demand prices. You grovel and struggle, perhaps even building Boxes, whilst you work in your in own shop at night, making what your heart desires. Did you read Jason Mcbain reply? 99.99 pct of us need a day job to pay the bills, whilst we (you as well) long for the ability, talent, drive, and patience to reach the star power level. The people you have described, hit the nail with a hammer every day, building and working for the first humble beginnings of a bird house. I will bet they even built a kitchen or bath cabinet along the way. Your examples are Star Power, and not really examples of successful fine woodworkers.
We have spoken about Tom Fidgen, and you have rejected his work and his book. I look at him as a younger craftsman that is learning, teaching & developing, and a work in progress. His pieces may well fetch the prices you describe. It takes time to develop and to become a market unto your own name. Publishing a first book, and have a widely read blog, interactive website, speaking engagements, social networking etc will be how his name is recognized and his work valued. The people have to say... "Ewwww I own a Maloof rocker, you know it so special, and it will only get more valuable in years to come" I only hope we live to 90 to watch and make some side bets on Tom. If I win you will come to my shop and sharpen every tool I own...;>)
Others build boxes and pay the bills, or do they build fine woodworking? Some of the kitchens I work around are works of art. Hand carved, select materials, built to last decades and more. One home had a cabinet contract over 500K. I think if G&G were building bungalows today instead of years when servants did the cooking in the back house, they would have some very involved cabinets done as well. Jeepers, they made wood light fixtures look like art pieces!! Can you imagine what they would have done with Boxes?
My point... there are many ways to reach ones potential. Learning skills in box shop, publishing a first book, or carving wood spoons for craft shows can get your feet on the path. Everyone starts humble, and a few breaks here and there can make the difference. Finding your niche and what you love is what it is about. Frankly, you post strikes me a introspective look of what I should have done with my life. How could I have been a world famous builder of Studio Furniture, and how could I have done that and still lived my life?
Morgan
Starting To Believe
Azmo, I'm starting to think that's really the way he remembers it.
At least, today.
Dusty,
My original post mentioned Alan Peters' book in which folks used other means of making income to subsidize their entry into fine furniture making. The idea of making kitchens to subsidize making fine furniture sounds good to me. An excellent example of what Peters was talking about. Making $2M a year would certainly do it. If I figured I could have done that, I would have skipped NASA, which didn't pay that kind of money. :-) I would have retired at thirty, and just done fine furniture, and spend even more time with my family. I LIKE THE WAY YOU THINK.
Thanks for posting that.
Mel
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