I don't believe

[Richard Hutchings]

Question: What type of work do you want to do? Some people can't handle case work because of size/weight. Some must use power tools for joinery. Some don't have a lathe. If you work in a garage weather might be an issue. Transporting finished pieces or shipping them? So Richard, do you have any limitations?

My self imposed limitation would be sheet goods. I'd rather handplane a twisted 2x. I have a lathe and made a bunch things for Christmas presents in the past. Inside out ornaments was my favorite. I l8ke to keep things small as there's no entrance to my shop except through the house. I can't stand in front of a lathe this year but I will do that again next year and try the market for them.

[Jim Koepke]

I can't stand in front of a lathe this year but I will do that again next year and try the market for them.

Some of the items that sold well were made with my lathe. It was easy to turn a piece that could be sawn to make a spoon blank.

Owl Spoon.jpgBig Spoons.jpgMore Spoons, Acorns & Owl.jpg

In the last image is an item that was carved into an owl. Some people are really into owls.

Be sure to research your wood to make sure it is safe for food contact.

I also made honey dippers and an item called a spurtle. A spurtle is an item of Scottish heritage for stirring oatmeal and soups.

Spurtle.jpg

This is a little different than the standard spurtle. Consult Dr. Google for more information.

Kelso and Longview are adjoining cities and Kelso is named after Kelso, Scotland.

From Wikipedia:

Kelso was founded by Peter W. Crawford, a Scottish surveyor, who, in 1847, took up the first donation land claim on the Lower Cowlitz River. Crawford platted a townsite which he named after his home town of Kelso, Scotland.

Just about everyone uses wooden spoons. They can be bought for a few bucks up to the prices like $80 that some artisans receive for theirs with added embellishments.

jtk

[Richard Coers]

The key to making money is make what they ask for, not what you want to build. I've been selling for 40 years. Made it an official business in 1988 as a part time legal business.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

As Richard says "Make what they ask for". This is why I dig ditches, clean gutters, re-caulk the bathtub, fix chairs, and occasionally get to make something nice.

Screen Shot 2023-11-18 at 4.55.09 PM.png

[David Carroll]

As a young man (mid 20s) I had a few ventures that made me beer money, that was about it. I lived in a College town (Amherst, MA) I worked for a News dealer/Stationer who also sold College supplies and clothing. I talked the owner into letting me sell small unfinished wooden furniture items through the store. Small bookshelves, bedside tables, foot lockers, and crates (the size of a milk crate, but made of wood). These sold pretty steadily when new students came in every fall. Another popular items were pledge paddle blanks. That lasted until the Fraternities were disenfranchised because of a hazing incident.

But my biggest score were wooden toys. One Christmas I made a dozen wooden tops, basically a 3/8-inch sharpened dowel inserted and glued into a commercial wooden toy wheel and painted pretty colors. I had a basket of them near the cash register and they sold steadily during the beginning of the holiday season, right after Thanksgiving. I think they sold for $3.50 and I got $2.50. One day the salesman from Carridi toys came by (they sold toys and novelties to us for resale). The salesman said he thought he could sell a lot of them if I could sell them for $2.00 and get him 300 pieces by December 1st. I agreed and he took them all. A week later he called me and said they all sold and he was sure he could sell another 300 pieces.

I worked my backside off, made another trip to Basketville up in Vermont to buy more wheels (they only had 200 left) and managed to get them all done. He was very happy and I made $1000.00 which was a fortune to me back in 1985. We decided to go big the next year.

Fast forward to the next year. I bought the supplies to make 500 pieces late in November and another 500 later if he wanted them. I supplied the first consignment and after a couple of weeks he came back and said that he was only able to move about 150. I guess we'd flooded the market and the novelty was gone. I still have some of those wheels!

I wonder if the same thing will happen with fancy cutting boards and wooden spoons. So many guys are making them and once everyone has one or three, then they stop moving. Particularly when some enterprising person finds out that some company in Asia will make them by the container load and flood the market.

I was left with a bad taste in my mouth about trying to make a living making wooden toys.

DC

[Maurice Mcmurry]

David, You had some fun and learned a lot. Location and timing certainly play a role in successful marketing. It boiled down to hard work, which has been my experience with making anything.

[Keegan Shields]

From what I’ve observed, it isn’t the actual woodworking that separates the most successful furniture makers from the rest. It’s their marketing and branding.

Know what your good at, and hire out the rest.

[Jim Koepke]

From what I’ve observed, it isn’t the actual woodworking that separates the most successful furniture makers from the rest. It’s their marketing and branding.

Know what your good at, and hire out the rest.

Good observation Keegan. Crafts fairs can be fun. If you are not willing to travel all over the place and treat it like a full time job it isn't going to make a lot of money. My farmers market experience wasn't much better as a once a week sales effort.

One needs to make things other people are willing to sell for you. The problem with that is they want a significant cut to put your work on their floor(s).

When I lived in California there were maybe a half dozen nurseries close enough for me to possibly sell potting benches. Now the closest one is about an hour drive. Our local nursery closed a few years back.

Other than that you might have to sell out of your shop/home. Then there is the cost of making people aware of your product.

jtk

[Scott Winners]

I have had to decide if I am woodworking for love or for money. It might be possible to do both, for a very few top end makers at the zenith of their careers. We do have at least one user here who is running a financially successful cabinet shop, the one I am thinking of is back east somewhere, Long Island maybe; and he seems to be happy. Pretty high energy guy, his posts read like machine gun bursts, short, to the point, effective tacka-tacka-tacka. I am happy for him that he seems to be happy.

For me to make money in woodworking in Fairbanks, Alaska right now I would have to use tools I don't want to use to build projects I don't want to build. If I was committed the smartest thing I could do would be to move to the lower 48 so I could get at a bigger pool of customers.

I do have a number of wooden cooking implements, and they turn over steadily. I dearly love my wooden spatulas from a shi-shi store down in Los Angeles that were made, I think, from Limousin Oak grown in France. But you know something? Good old North American white oak makes perfectly good turners, spoons and spatulas.

I did recently by a wok. It is a great way to make something fast and hot and pretty healthy. The wok tools I have been able to find in Fairbanks don't make me happy. I am about to go on that website named after a big river in South America looking for wooden wok tools and my expectation is I am never going to head out to my shop to make something enough better to bother at a reasonable price/cost.

To me, this is where the rubber meets the road for the OP:

What can I learn to build out of wood that someone might actually want at a price that covers the hours and materials?

One problem here is a thing that sells well this year may be headed for the landfill ten years from now. One possibility is bird houses. I am not one of "those people" myself, but I try to stay in reasonably good alignment with the outdoors. We have been seeing a new species of bird, never seen in Alaska before, right regular now. But there aren't any built houses for the new species, because they have never been seen here before.

The trouble with inexpensive things (spatula, birdhouse) is there is someone (or ten someones) out there who can clobber me on price, every time, once the market is identified.

I have the line "time and materials" bouncing around my brain box now. The technicians maintaining my motor vehicles have been getting flat rate time + materials for a few decades now.

The one I keep coming back to is well built housing. Not headed for architecture awards housing, just well built. Imagine a 25 year old client, tragic accident, spinal cord injury, cash settlement, 350# powered wheelchair, owns a vacant lot. The goal is a house the client can live in for the rest of their life. This client is not looking for a contractor grade house, and they know they are going to have to pay a little more to have good work done.

If I have any other ideas I will stop back by.

[Stew Denton]

Jim,

I remember your potting bench build, and I followed the build with great interest. A friend built a somewhat similar one a few years ago.

Now that I finally have a place for a garden, and a water bill I can afford, I may build something similar in the future. (Where we used to live my first water bill was $140, if I remember correctly, and we could not afford that, so I gave up gardening for 30+ years until we move here.) I will have to review your build.

Regards,

Stew

[Stew Denton]

I think the "Name" factor of the builder is important in a lot of things. I was a member of a fly fishing site for years, and was one of the recognized tiers on that bulletin board. One of the guys, extremely well known, had written several books on tying, and taught classes that were eagerly sought. He was definitely extremely well known, and top fly shops sold his flies and specifically listed the flies under his name as the tier. He had a specific style of fly. He got several times as much for his flies as other extremely good, but not well known tiers, got. The fly shops also charged a lot more for his flies than those of unknown guys.

I am certain that trout regarded the difference between his flies and those of other tiers with a yawn.

Regards,

Stew

[Jim Koepke]

I remember your potting bench build, and I followed the build with great interest. A friend built a somewhat similar one a few years ago.

Now that I finally have a place for a garden, and a water bill I can afford, I may build something similar in the future.

Glad to hear, hope to see some images of your work.

I think the "Name" factor of the builder is important in a lot of things.

There is a word for this, provenance.

provenance
noun
the police were suspicious about the provenance of the paintings: origin, source, place of origin; birthplace, spring, wellspring, fount, roots, history, pedigree, derivation, root, etymology

jtk

[Mark Hennebury]

Famous woodworkers are not famous because they are better than everyone else.
People think that they are better because they are famous.

This applies to all things that are not measurable.

The fastest runner is not difficult to determine.
The best woodworker....not so much.
We determine how good a woodworker is by how well their marketing campaign is going, how many people are dropping their name, how many magazines are writing about them etc.

No famous woodworker was ever measured in any way other than how famous they were.

People are like sheep and easily led, we all like famous people, we all like what famous people do, we all think they made the decision on our own. We are all wrong! We are all under the influence!

[Keegan Shields]

Famous woodworkers are not famous because they are better than everyone else.
People think that they are better because they are famous.

This applies to all things that are not measurable.

The fastest runner is not difficult to determine.
The best woodworker....not so much.
We determine how good a woodworker is by how well their marketing campaign is going, how many people are dropping their name, how many magazines are writing about them etc.

No famous woodworker was ever measured in any way other than how famous they were.

People are like sheep and easily led, we all like famous people, we all like what famous people do, we all think they made the decision on our own. We are all wrong! We are all under the influence!

They are often better at marketing themselves and building a brand - which is an essential part of building a successful business. Often they capitalized on a lucky break, while also working their behinds off.

The biggest mistake I see with the struggling craftspeople I’ve known is they don’t understand why their customers are buying their goods. People buy something as much for the story of its origin as the quality/features/design. The craftspeople also don’t make enough profit to invest in really great marketing. 30% gross margin just isn’t enough.

And finally, to emphasize Jim’s great point - you need to build what your customers want, not only what you like to build. Or, you need to find the right customers who do like what you make - and hopefully they can afford to buy your wares at 50%+ gross margin.

[Mark Hennebury]

I remember years ago about an investigative report that found that a very prestigious company in England was selling expensive 17th century French antique furniture that they found was made a couple of hundred miles away in England in the 20 century. All fake reproductions, but people paid for the feeling not the furniture. why tell them the truth and spoil it all?

They are often better at marketing themselves and building a brand - which is an essential part of building a successful business. Often they capitalized on a lucky break, while also working their behinds off.

The biggest mistake I see with the struggling craftspeople I’ve known is they don’t understand why their customers are buying their goods. People buy something as much for the story of its origin as the quality/features/design. The craftspeople also don’t make enough profit to invest in really great marketing. 30% gross margin just isn’t enough.

And finally, to emphasize Jim’s great point - you need to build what your customers want, not only what you like to build. Or, you need to find the right customers who do like what you make - and hopefully they can afford to buy your wares at 50%+ gross margin.