Looking to learn about mass-production oriented woodworking.
I am interested in learning more about mass-production in woodworking, specifically with a focus on furniture affordably priced for the middle class. I’ve got a good amount of experience doing custom furniture and one-offs but I’ve never worked in a shop that manufactured on a scale large enough to cater to anyone who wasn’t wealthy. I’m thankful for the experience and opportunity I’ve been offered by this, but I really yearn to move away from this kind of professional woodworking.
I’ve been looking into graduate programs (in the US and elsewhere), but I haven’t come across anything that feels really apt to what I’m interested in. The specific mentality I’m looking for is one in which manufacturing process, cost, and scalability is as central to furniture design as aesthetics. Does anyone know of any classes, programs, or books that might help me out?
Thanks!
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I have worked in one of those factories, the Canadian cousin of Ethan Allen in the 80,s . If such a thing still exists in America I would look in upstate North Carolina, it used to be the epicenter of wood furniture manufacturing and their universities probably still teach large scale furniture manufacturing.
Thanks! I just visited North Carolina for the first time this year. Such a nice place, I'll look into it.
I also have this same question
Your probably looking for something like a program that will be called something like " manufacturing and engineering technologies" at a University level. Been to a factory lately? Lots of machines,and astonishing machines.. and not many people. Most working there are technicians, not artisans.
Below that there are still some smaller manufacturers (but catering primarily to NOT a middle class clientele )doing production furniture on a smaller scale and still involve skilled people ,at least for some of the process. Companies like BDDW in Philadelphia. Places like that do hire people which might be the way to go. Eyes wide open I'd bet you could learn everything you need to know in less than a month...everything except the marketing that is. That's a different school!
My understanding is schools like North Bennett are more trade school oriented ,at least somewhat, rather than art school oriented which most woodworking programs in the US seem to be. I dont know if they actually are teaching you skills to go work for Ethan Allen or Bernhardt though.
You know ,as I know ,that the one off furniture business is a hard way to go ( if you pay yourself for one out of every four hours you actually work your doing pretty good!) and a close study of who we might consider really successful studio woodworkers reveals that they must have had a hard time as well and ended up standardizing a lot of their work. Art Carpenters wishbone chairs, he probably built hundreds of them ,Maloofs rockers,Krenovs cabinets,Nakashimas conoid chairs. Most went into some level of production work to make a living. I knew Art Carpenter and if he had any money he sure didn't live like he had some.
I would guess and it's just a guess, that Europe probably has programs directly oriented toward educating people to work in their furniture industries. Try the Royal Danish Academy or somewhere East of there.
About production: I have a sister in law visiting and she says that she saw a salt box somewhere and could I make her one. She found one on Amazon made out of Acasia to show me. I said "I do have some Acasia and I could make you one but this one your showing me is $ 9.95 and free shipping with prime!"
Thanks for the advice, I'm very open to considering Europe. Woodworking sure is a small world! My first job in this field was at BDDW. I did learn some things, but it's a place I would recommend to no one unfortunately. It has a well earned reputation among woodworkers on the east coast for being one of the worst working environments.
I completed a one year wood manufacturing and cabinetmaking program at a local community college. They had decided to add the cabinetmaking term to the program title because wood manufacturing was not bringing in adequate numbers. It covered some tool basics that were good but was too machine oriented for me. Most of what we did was learn to rapidly build kitchen cabinets with melamine. No other furniture really discussed. It was designed to produce employees for local industry. It was based largely on sheet goods. The only people I see working in these factories now are assemblers and everything else is pretty much down to cnc except for a bit of trimming and loading the machines and installation. You might want to consider engineering/tech programs if you are really into the machining side of things.
Thanks for sharing. I'm definitely a fan of CNC's to some extent, but I do think artisanal expertise is still heavily required when it comes to solid wood furniture, at least for a project lead. Some furniture can be simple enough to be fully CNC'd, and a CNC should be in every artisans arsenal but in my experience there are some serious limitations in what machining-oriented woodworkers can accomplish. Did you pursue any education after your manufacturing program? Did you find that you could use the foundations from those classes to expand your scope of skills later on?
I had a book, went looking for it and couldn't find it so..had a book, it was titled something like "Woodworking For Industry " and was an actual textbook. My edition would be really dated now, all analog. They may have updated editions.
So, what I know about BDDW is how they get pretty astronomical prices for pretty simplistic things and have retail outlets like --BDDW -NY,LONDON, MILAN ETC. I did a lot of work for designers over the years ,pretty much done with that now, and one was raving about BDDW so I looked them up. Their shop was still in Brooklyn at the time. So, all those photos of happy workers are actually bull?
A few years ago I spent the summer at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine where we visited the Thomas Mosler factory where they use a combination of the most sophisticated CNC equipment with hand assembly and finishing.They have a visitor program and if you go you will see in action what you described.
You might want to check out Cerritos Community College in LA. They
have an excellent program.
https://www.cerritos.edu/woodworking/default.htm
kevincantation asked; Did you pursue any education after your manufacturing program? Not formally. I went back to my previous much better paying job. To work in the wood industry, where wages were about 15 bucks an hour would leave me no time or energy to do anything else besides work and I did not enjoy that work.
Did you find that you could use the foundations from those classes to expand your scope of skills later on?
Yes it some areas, it was helpful. I sold most of my machinery, out went the tablesaws, routers, jointers, thickness planer, sanders etc. in came the hand planes, saws, scrapers etc. I went back a couple centuries of tech but work at my own pace. The noises of my little shop no longer terrify my autistic daughter and I still have 8 fingers left. The vocation became an avocation and I am much happier for it and a better woodworker as well I expect.
If you look at the description of Virginia Techs "Industrial and Systems Engineering" program it looks like it covers most of your questions.
Once talking to an architect and looking about a design of his I asked "But how do you build it?" His reply was "That's what engineers are for!"
If one has that background then it probably doesn't matter what your making. Cars,chairs,hyperloops .